


Long Live the Empress

by ishouldwritethatdown



Series: a burning black mark against your name [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jessamine Kaldwin Lives, Marked Jessamine Kaldwin, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Mute Corvo Attano, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 97,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27515929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Jessamine isn’t used to getting her hands dirty. There are people on staff at Dunwall Tower whose entire job is to make sure it never happens – but she isn’t in Dunwall Tower any more. Her Spymaster is slaughtering her people, and she’s in the gutter far below, trying to fathom a way to reach up so she can bury him in the diseased muck he created. Six months ago, she died. But she still has a job to do, a daughter to find. If she has to turn her hands black with the Void to save her family and her Empire, she will do it.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin, Emily Kaldwin & Jessamine Kaldwin
Series: a burning black mark against your name [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011048
Comments: 110
Kudos: 178





	1. Lines of Power

**Author's Note:**

> TW: death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months have passed since the Empress was assassinated. Now she’s awake, and she’s going to find the ones who abducted her daughter. Dunwall might just be a little different to how she remembers it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! I started planning this fic almost a full year ago, and it's finished at long last. I will be posting a chapter every week starting today. I will be putting trigger warnings here in the chapter notes (if anyone thinks I've missed off a warning that should be included, please let me know and I will amend it). I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This fic was inspired by another with a similar starting premise, called 'Dethroned'. Unfortunately I did not have a note of the author's username and the fic has been completely deleted from Ao3 since I read it, so I can't properly credit the inspiration. Therefore I throw to the wind my thanks to the author and wish them well!

Edmund Kirkhouse took his job seriously. He was a devoted man – and with no spouse, or children, or grandchildren to spend that devotion on, he dedicated his time to his work. Though some might have seen it as bleak, even morbid, he found joy in it, silently priding himself on a job well done each morning.

Course, there was much less of a job to be done these days. Anybody who had need of a corpse could pick one up from the edge of the flooded district, as long as they didn’t mind risking a little plague. Stocks of elixir were in more need of guardianship than an old graveyard in the Tower District, Edmund knew. But he’d retired from the City Watch a long time ago, so they couldn’t tell him what to do. He was employed by the city itself, now – which meant he was in the employ of Dunwall Tower.

He’d met the Empress once. She had still been a young thing, then. A new Empress, without living predecessor or heir, only a silent bodyguard who spoke in hands. It had been his tenth year guarding the cemetery, and she had come to congratulate him. Spoke real formal, smiled real nice. Not a forced smile, he didn’t remember it as forced, but what did he know about smiles? All he had was ghosts for company.

Terrible what happened to the Empress, he thought with a distant part of his concentration as he raised his lantern to the dark. It _was_ terrible. But there was a lot of terrible in the world, was the thing. Even the Tower District was starting to feel it; the encroaching darkness. World felt a little bit colder and darker every day, but they kept on lighting lanterns.

What he could see was still. Harsh, stretched shadows teetered from the crypts as he cast the light about, but he didn’t find any telltale flash of movement that might give away the origin of the thumping he could hear. Edmund adjusted his grip on his cane, the thick lump of metal on the end a reassuring weight. It had been a snarling bullhound, once, he thought, but the lines had worn out, and now it only resembled a misshapen kickabout ball. Hurt worse than any kickaball to get whacked with, though.

The thumping sound didn’t slow or falter as he approached, although whoever it was must have seen the light approaching. Edmund cleared his throat and called, “You there, wha’d’you think you’re doing?”

There was no change. He called again, as he arrived outside the Kaldwin Family crypt, and was answered with a thump, unmistakably now coming from the crypt. “You stop that!” he shouted, casting his lantern about, throwing long shadows of the iron bars across the crypt’s floor. He tried the handle of the heavy iron gate and found it was still locked. He didn’t think the bars would be big enough to let anyone through, except a very skinny child, perhaps, at the top of the arched entryway.

He could see nothing there but cold stone and creeping shadows. They could have been hiding behind one of the gisents, either the furthest of the late Emperor Euhorn, or the crisp white stone of Empress Jessamine in front. Edmund huffed, and went around the side, very carefully set the lantern down. He intended to sneak back around – the bugger would have to leave eventually, and he would be ready for them when they did. He almost jumped clean out of his skin as there was another _thump_ and a _scape_ and a mighty _crack_ of splitting stone coming from inside the crypt.

He couldn’t see awfully well without the lantern, but he thought the gisent of the Empress might have been pushed and broken. Deciding he could not afford to wait for the delinquent to destroy any more of the crypt, he fumbled for his keys. His keys rattled on the ring and there was another sound from inside – like a sack of potatoes dropping. The fancy Roseburrow mechanism clunked out of its lock, and he hefted the gate open.

The creature that rose before him had waves of long, dark, flower-strewn hair cascading down around its shoulders. Its skin was paler than the moon on a clear night, its dress torn and smeared with dust where it had hit the stone floor. It was the most unnatural thing Edmund had ever laid eyes on; not knowing how to stand like a real person, speaking only in grunts and groans.

Edmund’s Ma had told him plenty of stories about revenants and water-hags and ghastly changelings that he knew as soon as he saw it what he had to do: he slammed the gate shut and locked it. He thumped his stick on the ground three times, and shouted, “You are bound in iron! Go back from whence you came, fiend!”

The creature pounded against the bars, reaching for him, and it rattled furiously.

He stumbled away from the crypt, sticking out his cane to catch him, but it slid on the turf and let him fall to his backside, at the same time as the lantern went out with a hiss of hot oil against cold mud.

He flinched at another thud, and he could hear the metal groaning. He looked at the mud-splattered end of his cane, caught in the far-off glow of moonlight, and the creature forcing its way out of the newest and sturdiest crypt in the graveyard.

Edmund Kirkhouse took his job seriously. But he took his life seriously too.

He hid behind a headstone and prayed as the lock shattered. He prayed to be spared from the Void, he prayed to be forgiven for his shortcomings, he prayed that he would live to hear the next service at the Abbey – which he would listen to on the loudspeakers every week from now on.

When he dared to listen, he didn’t hear the snarls and stomps of a great shuddering beast stalking him, or the mournful song of a siren spirit seeking vengeance. He heard something whimpering, gasping, like an injured animal. He told himself it was a deception, and then he told himself to look anyway. Inching his eyes above the headstone, he saw a figure – not the same wretched creature as before – stooped over a crumpled shape, and ducked right back down again. There was a sudden, short-lived breeze that ruffled the very top of his hair, and when he chanced another look, there was nothing there but tufts of feather drifting slowly to the ground.

A bird, Edmund concluded, straightening himself and tucking his cane under his arm in a dignified fashion. He dusted off his hat, feeling rather silly with himself as he ignored the creaking of the broken gate and began to walk back to the distant light of the porch, as if the whole encounter had been a trick of his imagination.

\---

Jessamine could smell something rotting. It wasn’t as pungent as the smell of decay that sometimes rose up from the sewers on the east side of the Tower on a hot summer’s day – it was more like flowers, dying. There was a sour twist at the end of the sweet bouquet. Stagnant water.

She could feel the hard floor through the mattress. The room was dusty, and the paint on the ceiling was peeling, and after a moment she realised she had somehow been transported to the secret room behind the fireplace. “Corvo?” she murmured, because he had to have been the one to carry her here after… What had happened? An attempt on her life. She remembered the dark red coat and the jagged scar down the man’s face. She remembered—

“Emily!” she called urgently, looking around the room, and dizziness overcame her. She couldn’t make sense of her surroundings – this place was bigger than she remembered it, and a bit damp, and had someone moved the desk--? Chest heaving, head spinning, she tried to identify something that would tell her where she was. This was not Dunwall Tower. She needed to get back home, she needed to find Emily.

“Is that you awake, dearie?” cooed a voice. Old, but without the warmth that sometimes came with years. Jessamine shivered, and pulled the threadbare blanket back around her shoulders. She heard the shoes, slightly heeled, on the creaky wooden floorboards and in the doorway appeared an old woman. She had updone grey hair fastened with a clasp, and a fine, vintage jacket that was scuffed and stained in places. She would have been quite the fashionable lady, once. Now she looked as decrepit as her hideaway.

“Who are you?” Jessamine croaked. Her voice sounded as if it had gone unused for weeks. Her mouth barely remembered how to form the words. She was speaking from the floor, separated from the rat droppings and mould by something that wouldn’t pass as a mattress by most standards. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing – goodness, what was she wearing? A crumpled white nightgown, by the looks of it. She didn’t presently feel fit to be the Empress.

The woman began to hum as she walked into the room, ignoring Jessamine and going to the shelves to search for something with her fingers. Jessamine repeated her question.

“Oh, I’m just your granny, don’t mind me. My fiancé, he asked me to take care of you, yes, you were in ever such a bad way. Lucky that you’ve got him looking out for you, so lucky, oh I do try not to get jealous.”

“Where’s Corvo?”

She resumed her hummed song and left the room again. Jessamine got to her feet a little unsteadily and scanned the room for clues to her surroundings, careful not to step on anything sharp with her bare feet. There was nothing to orient her – an old Moray urn on the shelves, but that was hardly a clue. The Morays had sold off huge chunks of their estate decades ago. And two darts stuck into a wooden chair nearby, filled with green fluid. She recognised Sokolov’s concoction; he had once offered to dose Emily with it when she was being particularly unruly in the middle of the night. She’d refused.

Taking the darts in her hand, she crept out into the hallway. She could hear the woman, croaking in a sing-song way about feeding the birds and making a nice stew. On her immediate right was a door with a draft coming from underneath it, and she made a note of it. Possible escape route.

Behind the stairs at the end of the corridor was what seemed to be a kitchen, with a washbasin and a stove, which the woman was working at. Beside the washbasin was another door with another chill emanating from it. This one must have been even more poorly insulated, because the cold settled over her skin and gave her gooseflesh.

“Who are you?” she demanded again, feeling more confident now that she was upright. “Are you with the man in red?”

“A man in red, no no,” she said, almost making it into a laugh. “Only my handsome groom in black for me. You should speak with him before I feed my birdies. He’s just through there,” she gestured to the handle of the door. “Go, go. He’s waiting for you.”

She became less sure that the chill on her skin was about the cold when she opened the door. There was a flickering purple light at the end of the passage, and a feeling of electricity in the air. Like walking through a wall of light, or standing on the deck of a ship during a storm. She hadn’t ever done either of those things, so she didn’t know how she recognised them, but the sense of _wrongness_ here was something else; something that reached down to her heart and closed around it. _This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong_.

The whine of the loudspeaker felt profoundly distant, on the other side of the house. It might as well have been part of another world. “…from sundown to sunrise, unless you are otherwise authorized. Violators will be subject to interrogation and detained when necessary. Remember, the boldest measures are the safest."

She tried not to let the mud slip her up as she edged down the slope towards the glow. At the end of the yard was a shrine made of sticks and bone, lit in eerie purple lantern light. There was something else, a kind of aura it was bathed in, a gentle buzz beneath her fingertips.

She heard whispers in the wind but couldn’t make out the words. Edging closer, they got louder, but not clearer. Tentatively, she brushed her finger along the edge of the carved whale bone on top of the shrine.

 _“They call her Granny Rags,”_ said a voice, hushed and distorted. Not like the loudspeaker, tinny and distant; it was right in her ear, but as though she were listening from underwater. _“She’s not as feeble as she looks.”_

“Who are you?” she asked. “Why did you bring me here? Can you help me find my daughter?”

 _“This city is built on the bones of the great ones,”_ it said. She got the impression that she was only hearing echoes – it was like trying to talk to a mirror, or an audiograph. Just a reflection of the Void, bleeding through. It continued, _“Ghosts tread the old paths. Lines of power. Follow them. Follow them, Jessamine. Listen.”_

A chill ran down her back at her own name. The candles in the lanterns flickered and lost their intensity. As she stuttered over a response, the whispers became indistinct again, and then vanished altogether. Her audience with the Void, however brief, was now over.

She muddied her knees slipping on the incline back up to the house. _No one’s watching…_ she told herself as she got to her feet, and tried to ignore the prickling of hairs on the back of her neck, the sensation that the Void had crept into her shadow when she looked into the shrine.

“You weren’t gone for very long,” remarked the old woman. Granny Rags. “I can sit and talk to him for hours, he’s ever such a good listener.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, just about scraping together a polite tone, “but I need to find my daughter.”

“Hold on there a minute, dearie,” she said, turning and taking hold of her upper arm with remarkable precision for a blind woman. Her voice was considerate, concerned, even warm all of a sudden. “Your daughter, you say? Whatever happened?”

“She was… taken. I need to find her.” The grip on her arm didn’t loosen.

“Yes, of course, of course,” said Granny. “We’ll find her, don’t you worry. Who was it that took her? This man in red you mentioned, was it?”

“Yes,” she said urgently. She didn’t trust this woman, but there was no one else. “He had, his people, his people had whaling masks. They had this, this power, moving from place to place in a blink.”

“Ah, yes, I think I know just who you mean.” She patted Jessamine’s shoulder.

“You do?”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been here a long time, you know,” she wagged a finger. “And I’ve got keen ears. Very keen ears. Ways, too, I’ve got my ways… You go upstairs now, and find some clothes to change into. You can’t be walking around dressed like that, you’ll catch the death of cold before the plague. I’ll see what I can find about your little girl, just leave it to Granny.”

“But isn’t there a quarantine?” she blinked, as Granny moved around her and towards the front door. “For the plague, I heard it on the loudspeaker, the curfew…”

“Oh, they’ll never mind one blind old woman,” she said. “I’ll stay out of sight. Back before you know it. Go on upstairs now. I do hope the clothes fit.”

Uncertain what else she could do, she creaked her way upstairs, trying to avoid splinters. The first flight of stairs led her to a room with a rowboat suspended from the ceiling and gaping hole to the outside world. There must have been doors leading to the balcony once upon a time, but they were long gone, so the house just opened directly into the world. She ran to the bannister around the balcony on instinct. The street was run down, the kind of place her chaperones hurried her past on her visits into the city centre – except it wasn’t. Just beyond the houses opposite, that was Clavering Boulevard, one of the most upscale neighbourhoods in the city. She squinted her eyes in the dusklight to make out the sign on the end of the row. Endoria Street. She was on Endoria Street.

Not familiar territory, not by a long shot, but she knew where she was. The edge of the Distillery District, not far down the river, not so far at all from Dunwall Tower.

Her elation was washed away smoothly as her surroundings sunk in. Close to the Tower she might be, but this was not Dunwall as she had left it. If this was two streets over from Clavering, then what did the rest of the city look like? There were bodies poorly-wrapped in sheets and piled on the pavement. No lights glowed in any of the windows, and even the almshouse below had its shutters down. There were diagonal crosses with the top quart coloured in, painted haphazardly on the sides of the buildings to mark them as infected. If the plague had done this much damage to this part of the city, then…

How long had she been asleep?

At last she turned to examine the range of clothes that Granny Rags had left. If she were to be kind about them, she would say they were vintage. There was more than one coat styled after the military uniforms of the Olaskir dynasty. It had been fashionable at the time – noble ladies and children, wearing bedazzled versions of uniforms and learning how to shoot rifles for fun. That made fur trims and animal skins popular, too, of course. The Golden Age of the Second Empire, Jessamine’s tutor used to say fondly. It hadn’t been the Second Empire in at least two decades by then, it was just the _Empire_ , and why did she need to learn about the clothes that those musty old dead people wore, anyway? The Olaskirs were gone, it was the Kaldwin dynasty now, that’s what Father said.

Jessamine sighed and thought of Emily as she did her best not to factor in the hideousness of her clothing options. She thought of Corvo, helping their daughter to evade her governesses as he had once helped her avoid her tutors. She’d been through three governesses in a year.

Granny Rags hadn’t supplied her with any shoes. The stockings at least protected her soles from the smaller splinters, but she couldn’t take to the streets like this. She would have to ask, when Rags came back. A nice, sturdy pair of shoes to complete her outfit – a button-down shirt over a simple brassiere, hardly worn by the looks of it, and trousers that were probably intended for horse riding, as were the gloves. The silk-lined military-style jacket with the tail was hardly her preferred style, but it fit well. What her Master of Wardrobe would say to the ensemble, she could only imagine.

She also thought that somebody – Peregrine, probably – would have something to say about the smelling salts she found in one of the jacket’s pockets. She decided to hold onto them.

There was someone knocking (no, pounding) at the door. Jessamine was busy trying to secure her hair out of her face and had thought they would just go away, but they didn’t seem to be stopping. Sticking an ornate pin into her hurried twist, she went to the doorframe that lead into the hallway, and saw a bulky shadow cast on the misty glass.

“Let us in, Granny,” said a gruff voice, in between bouts of pounding.

“I bet she can’t even hear us,” said a second voice.

“She’s blind, not deaf,” said a third.

“We’re here to do your washing!”

Whatever pleasant affectation he had tried to put on his voice, it fell flat, and his friend let him know as much: “She’s not _stupid_ , either.”

Jessamine opened the door. There was a stunned, quiet moment where the thugs stared at her, and she tried to explain to herself why she had done that.

“You’re not Granny Rags,” said the second man.

Jessamine had always thought of herself as a diplomat. Her father had made sure she knew how important it was to make no more enemies than necessary – marking the beginning of a new dynasty was no easy feat, particularly when the Morley insurgents who had assassinated the Olaskirs believed that their King and Queen should have been coronated in Euhorn’s place. It was important to at least create the illusion of good living and improvement in one’s empire. He’d opened the Dunwall Tower Gardens to the public because he wanted to show that nobody was excluded from the prosperous of the nobility, but he wouldn’t fund shelters for the destitute without fanfare. He held negotiations with the Morley royals because he wanted to maintain trade routes, but he would not field their questions about an independent state.

Jessamine, on the other hand, had made a nuisance of herself debating everyone and everything since she was young. She cared about fairness in the way that children care about fairness – selfishly – and then in the way that good leaders care about fairness – compromisingly.

Something she had learned in the courts of the Isles was to never correct or assure somebody’s assumptions until it advantages one to do so. Something she had learned playing poker with Corvo and the Duke of Serkonos was that one should hold their cards close to their chest for as long as possible.

“Oh, hello, dearies,” she said, strengthening the High Court accent almost to the point of comedy. She had learned it when she was a girl, of course, but hardly anyone used it any more since most of the nobles who had clung to the ways of the old dynasty had died by now.

The man in front seemed to regain his composure, cocking his pistol squarely at her chest. Jessamine was surprised to feel that her heartbeat barely accelerated at all. The recent attempt on her life must have made her nerves less excitable. “Bottle Street tax,” repeated the man. “Pay up, lady.”

Jessamine frowned and leaned out the door as if checking her whereabouts, careful not to break out in a smile when the men flinched backwards slightly. “This is Endoria Street,” she said.

The first man sputtered, so the second took over smoothly, “You’re in Bottle Street territory!”

The third man looked rather shaken, and nudged his compatriot to mutter something in his ear. He elbowed him back with a scowl and said, “Don’t be an idiot.”

“What was that?” Jessamine asked sweetly, tilting her ear to them.

“Nothing. Tod here just has an active imagination. Witches and ghouls – that’s kids’ stuff. No one ever told this genius here the tooth fairy ain’t real either, I bet.” He laughed, and the second man laughed, and Jessamine laughed, but the third barely managed a smile.

“You boys shouldn’t meddle with things you’re not prepared to deal with,” she warned, letting the words fall sinister as they wanted to, and she reached into her pocket.

“Blast this!” declared the third man, punching the second on the shoulder as he hurried away towards the archway that led into Bottle Street. The one he’d hit followed after a faltering moment, leaving the first man alone. He raised his arms at his retreating allies and let them drop again, exasperated.

“Run along now,” she instructed, and his mouth twitched. Maybe that had been too bold.

“You’re not really Granny Rags,” he said apprehensively. Like he wanted to be sure of it, but he was desperate for confirmation. “If she could make herself look all young ‘n’ beautiful, she’d do it all the time.”

“Maybe I like it when choffers like _you_ underestimate me,” accentuating the word with a sharp poke in his shoulder as she stepped across the threshold.

He kept his distance, backing away as she advanced, until finally he said, “Keep away from me, witch!” and started running away to the distillery, after his friends. They’d probably be back once they could convince themselves they were being silly. Probably be more forceful about it, next time. She should get moving as soon as possible.

Jessamine blinked and refocused her eyes when she saw something drift past her vision, and it took a baffled moment for her to identify what was falling from the sky: snow. “It’s not cold enough for snow,” she murmured, trying to catch a snowflake in her hand like she was a child. Sundown to sunrise, the voice on the loudspeaker had said. Not much of a curfew in the Month of Earth, when the sun only dipped behind the horizon for a few hours, but if this was the Month of Darkness…

If this was the Month of Darkness, then she had been asleep for five wretched months.

She heard a _poff_ come from the room upstairs with the balcony, and retreated inside the house, latching the door behind her. She climbed the stairs and found Granny Rags with her back to the door, working on something. “How did you find the clothes, dearie?” she asked.

“I don’t have any shoes,” she said, forgetting all her manners. She stammered, “I apologise, I meant to say that the clothes fit perfectly, and you are very generous. However, I—”

“Will these fit?” she asked, holding a pair of slender black boots behind her.

Jessamine examined the shoes and judged they were about the right size. She opened her mouth to thank her, but was halted by the sudden comprehension of the shape she had placed on the wobbly chair in the room. It was a person, covered head-to-toe in black leather – except for their boots, which were now in her hands. The captive was slumped in the seat, unconscious, and she might have worried about that. Only, they were wearing a whaling mask.

“He’s nice and fresh,” Granny Rags said. “Should get what we need out of him.”

“Thank you,” Jessamine said, because she didn’t really know the appropriate reaction to seeing an assassin tied up in someone’s upstairs room.

Granny Rags finished securing the Whaler with lengths of odd black rope and turned to face her slightly, wagging a finger at the boots. “Only be careful of hidden blades. Tricky, these ones.”

Feeling through the sole tentatively with her fingers, she couldn’t find a knife in the right foot, and went on to check the second. “Ma’am, how long have I been here?” she asked.

“None of this _ma’am_ ,” Granny Rags tutted. “I’m Granny. You’ve been with me for the past few days, now. My fiancé said—”

“But it’s dark,” she cut in, not eager to hear any more about the black-eyed stranger Granny planned to take for a groom any more than she already had. “It must have been months since I was… awake. What month is it?”

“Why, whoever is keeping track of months these days? Harvest. Clans, Songs. This is the month of the sickness. It’s the month of birdies. It has been ever since the Empress was murdered. The poor child…”

“The Empress?” Jessamine felt a flutter in her heart. “The Empress was murdered.”

She seemed far away suddenly, and spoke as if she was parroting someone else’s words. “Regal, fair-minded, she brought prosperity to the city, hope to all, then violently murdered these six months ago! But here’s the worst part – it was a man she trusted over all others that did the deed!”

“Six months,” she repeated. “The Empress died six months ago.”

“Did I say six months?” mused Granny Rags. “I suppose I’ve been keeping track after all.”

It was the Month of High Cold. No wonder it was blasted snowing. _Emily’s out there – in the cold, in the dark. Alone. Six months. I abandoned her for six months. I abandoned my people._

Why was she so sure that Emily wasn’t in Dunwall Tower? That Corvo hadn’t found her, and made her safe, and all of this was just bad advice given to a grieving, inexperienced Empress in a time of strife…

But she knew that wasn’t true. She had known it the second she had woken up. Emily was in danger. Something else must have happened. Corvo would never be separated from Emily by choice, not now, something must have happened to him.

The assassin stirred, snapping her out of her thoughts. She searched for a scarf to cover her face with hurriedly and instead found an old visard mask – plain black, and the buttons that the wearer was supposed to hold in their mouth to keep it on were long gone, so she had to hold it in place. It smelled of mothballs.

She heard the assassin’s breath hitch behind his mask, and there was some kind of struggle between him and Rags around his hands that ended with her teasing off one of his gloves, then the other, with a disapproving coo. “No, no, I don’t think so, dearie. We can’t have you poisoning yourself, can we?”

“You won’t get anything out of me,” he said urgently. “We’re trained for interrogation, you know. I’ll never break.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t need poison in your gloves,” Granny Rags said, her voice never losing its sing-song quality. “Now then, I’ve got someone who’d like to speak to you. Let’s get this nasty mask out of the way.”

“You don’t need to take it off,” Jessamine said, and Rags’ hand froze clutched around the mouthpiece. Her fingers were like spiders’ legs, and they unfurled one by one to let go before she stepped back.

Jessamine sat down opposite the Whaler. They were on the same eye level – and he could see into her eyes, but she couldn’t see into his. She kept both hands in front of her. All the tricks she’d learned at court – not hiding anything, not lying. False vulnerability. His own hands flexed in their restraints, shifting the tattoos on his skin; black geometric lines that snaked along the lines of his hands and fingers.

“What’s your name?”

“Why?” He was stalling. Trying to fortify his defences against her questions. But he’d already slipped up by implying there was an answer she could give that would grant her access to his name.

“I don’t want to call you Whaler,” she said. Maybe later it would unsettle her that she was so well-equipped for interrogation. For now she filed it away. She needed to find Emily.

He hesitated. “Peter.”

It didn’t matter if it was his real name or not. Either way, he was giving her answers. “I don’t want to hurt you, Peter, but I have a job to do, so if you don’t cooperate, there are no guarantees. Do you understand?”

He was silent.

“This is very simple, alright?” she said. “I need the answer to one question, and then you can go, and nobody need think any more about this. Six months ago, your group attacked the Empress and kidnapped the heir to the throne. I just need you to tell me where you took Lady Emily.”

He didn’t move, but she could feel him squirming. He knew something. She saw something shine in the corner of her eye – Granny Rags was presenting her with the hilt of a short, decorative dagger. It was polished and sharp, to the grade of the silverware in Dunwall Tower.

She took the knife and weighed it in her hand. “Peter. Where is Lady Emily?”

“I don’t know,” he said, a little too fast.

“Don’t lie to me.” She pressed the point of the blade against his bottom rib.

“I don’t! I wasn’t on that job, I—” he protested, and cried out when she pressed harder. She hadn’t punctured the leather yet, but when she did, the knife would slide straight into his lung. As an assassin, he must know exactly how much a death like that would hurt. “No, no no, okay, listen, all we had to do was pass her off at the edge of the Tower District, that was the deal. I saw it in the balance book.”

“Pass her off to _who_?”

“I don’t know, the patron’s men! No one uses _names_ in this business!”

“Argh!” she said, and heard her governess scolding her from beyond the grave as she eased back. She turned her back, taking the mask away from her face, and the Whaler’s heavy breathing filled the room. “This is hopeless.”

“Not hopeless, my dear,” Granny Rags assured, twisting her fingers back around the knife’s hilt. “One of these nasty men must know who has your daughter. We’ll just find another one.” Whip-quick, she jammed the knife between the Whaler’s ribs. The stunted gasp that escaped from his mask made her turn around in alarm, just in time to see him slump in his seat, dead.

Jessamine couldn’t help taking a slightly staggered step back. Blood pooled through his uniform, and the room was stiller than before. You didn’t notice how someone being alive produced an audible ambience until it was suddenly and violently extinguished. “You… you didn’t have to kill him. We could have let him go. He didn’t even know anything.”

“Oh, dearie,” pouted Rags. “We couldn’t let him live. Not when he has such precious bones for carving.”

She cackled, and Jessamine turned and ran down the stairs. The laughter seemed to follow her, echoing down some invisible line, and the purple glow of the Outsider shrine reached under the door in the kitchen, beckoning her with whispers from the Void. For a moment or an eternity she was frozen there, and then her feet carried her out of the front door and into the night. The cold, dark, curfewed night.

An Empress, even a dead one, wandering the streets of her own city should have options. What did she have? Endoria Street. Leading to a quarantined residential district and a quarter of run-down distilleries, brasseries, and brothels. City Watchmen guarding the entrance to Clavering Boulevard who were bound to take advantage of a lone woman out past curfew. Beyond that… Holger Square.

The loudspeaker crackled. "Attention, Dunwall citizens. The Lord Regent would like to remind you that in this continuing crisis, the Overseers of the Abbey of the Everyman remain in service of the state, and are empowered to enforce whenever and wherever necessary. We owe our thanks to High Overseer Campbell for the generous loan of their services."

The Void had whispered at her to follow the lines of power. So maybe it was time to go to church.


	2. Church and State

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a loss for how else to reach those who conspired with the Lord Regent, Jessamine heads for Holger Square to confront High Overseer Campbell and see if she can find anything that might tell her where Emily is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: sexual humour, mention of suicide

Square, and that was the name she had managed to attach to the honourable Lord Regent. Quarantines and curfews – that had Hiram written all over it in blood. As well as that catchphrase of his: ‘The boldest measures are the safest.’ That had been in his original pitch to her for his plague ‘countermeasures’. What he called bold would condemn large swathes of Dunwall’s populace to death. She had refused him outright. The final wishes of an Empress, it seemed, didn’t amount to much.

She kept thinking of what Granny Rags had said, that the one who killed the Empress was the man she trusted above all others. She trusted Corvo with her life, her heart, every part of herself, but she had trusted Hiram with her kingdom. Trusted him enough to believe he was right to send Corvo around the Empire looking for hope of a cure. Trusted him to listen when she expressly forbade his countermeasures. What a fool she had been.

She thought she knew how he might have seized the title of Lord Regent for himself. A certain amount of _ad hoc_ procedure would be necessary, but declaring a state of emergency due to suspected conspiracy would certainly put him in the right place to begin the process. People trusted Spymasters in a crisis, after the Morley Insurrection that ended the Olaskir Dynasty. Hiram had been chosen by the previous spymaster. Even if Emily hadn’t been missing, Jessamine doubted that the council would have approved of Corvo stepping in as regent. His Lord Protector title technically gave him the right, but it hadn’t happened in generations. If something happened to the ruling monarch, chances were that something had happened to their Protector, too.

She was worried for Corvo. She hadn’t heard him mentioned over the loudspeakers, unlike Hiram and Campbell and even Anton. She remembered telling him to find Emily, and she had no doubt that he would fulfil that task, as he did with every other request she ever made. She needn’t have made this one, in truth; she knew Corvo would do anything to protect Emily. She was certain he was looking for her, but for him not to have found her in six months…

“You boys can be a little rougher with me, if you like,” said the Overseer. He was being strapped into the stocks in Holger Square, but he seemed fairly chipper about it.

“Shut up,” said one of the ones restraining him. “A few nights in the stocks ought to wipe that smirk off his face, don’t you think, Jasper?”

“Or maybe he will have just frozen in place like that,” said the other, Jasper, and they both laughed.

“I’ll remember that the next time you ask me for a _favour_ ,” remarked the one in the stocks.

The one who wasn’t Jasper turned to his companion and said, as if sharing in a joke, “He thinks he’s getting out of there.”

“Have fun, Martin,” Jasper said, and they started to walk back towards the Abbey.

“I’m a little short of hands at the moment,” Martin called after them, rolling his wrists in the cuffs. “If it gets a bit nippy tonight, can I warm up my cock in your anus?”

Jessamine had spent most of the night and the better portion of the day trying to map the political landscape of Dunwall. The sputtering of that Bottle Street gangster trying to shake down Granny Rags made sense once she learned that the Bottle Street Gang had recently taken the rest of the Distillery District from the Hatters. It also explained the fresh graffiti all over their new territory. The Dead Eels still held the river despite Slackjaw’s efforts, but the Hatters on this side of the Wrenhaven were being slowly pushed back into the Legal and Financial Districts.

“If we’re lucky, they’ll hammer and tack right into the knife,” cackled one of the gangsters. Jessamine wasn’t familiar enough with the slang language to understand what they were talking about exactly, but she knew enough to surmise that the flooded district was regarded as a death sentence. Considering the projections she’d received six months ago about it becoming a breeding ground of rats, hagfish, and river krusts, she could only imagine.

The parts of the city not rampant with gang activity were under martial law enforced by Watchmen and Overseers. That included Holger Square, the Estate and Tower Districts, and North Bridge. As far as she could tell, there was functionally no difference between the areas controlled by the Watch and the areas controlled by the gangs, except the gangsters wouldn’t harass you for breaking curfew.

The damage that had been done to Dunwall was terrible and much deeper than she had ever been told. She relied on certain people to inform her about what was going on in the Empire, and those people had failed her. She was certain now that Hiram had been blocking petitions for audiences personally so that she never found out how bad things got – not just with regards to the plague, which he had tried to pass off initially as a minor epidemic of flu. He must have been hiding things from her advisors, too, or else paid them to hold their silence. She could perhaps believe that certain members of the advisory council had been bought or bullied into silence, but she thought – perhaps hoped – that if Lord Strauss had been party to any of this… No, she didn’t think she could afford to make such a judgement. Not any more.

Someone in her council had to be to blame for the bursting of the Wrenhaven Barrier that caused the Rudshore Financial District to flood. It was a matter of city management, which was not even close to Hiram’s purview. As she understood it when she had untangled the web of red tape and peeled back the layers of finger-pointing and blame-laying, a bureaucrat charged with overseeing the maintenance had neglected their duties for some years. Although the need for maintenance work on the Barrier had been reported many times, the appropriate people were never reached due to the efforts of several others, who all seemed to have enabled each other.

Of course, all of this only came to light _after_ the district had swept away a great many people, walls, and valuables. For two solid months and significant time afterwards, almost the only petitioners Jessamine saw were asking for compensation from the city. Some requests were perfectly reasonable – people who had lost loved ones, or members of staff to the flooding. Others, understandable but terribly inconvenient – people who had lost property, goods, or heirlooms. And then the dizzying amount of brokers, creditors, investors, and treasurers who demanded to be compensated for the theoretical money they had _expected_ to make in the coming financial year. Hiram and his ilk had most likely used the tragedy to their advantage, hidden the rest of Dunwall’s problems from her by labelling only the floods as a priority.

Esmond Roseburrow had not been a healthy man, but he didn’t name the developments in the whale oil industry in his suicide note for nothing. It had taken some persistence to learn for herself what kind of developments Roseburrow had been referencing, and the answers she eventually received had made her sick to her stomach. Seeing Anton’s walls of light realised in the city was like something out of a nightmare.

She was here to start doing something about all of that.

“Good afternoon,” Martin said, speaking with perfect diction and composure for a man restrained as he was. “You look like an interesting character.”

She didn’t doubt it. The visard mask two hundred years out of fashion, combined with the filter mask that she’d stolen from the Watch supplies, was already odd enough without the Olaskir-style military jacket, gloves, and riding trousers thrown in the mix. “I hear you’re the one to come to if I need something,” she said.

“I’m a little tied up at the moment,” he said flatly, but something seemed to dawn on him, and he continued, “but if you can get me free I’ll certainly be in your debt. What are you in the market for?”

“Information.”

“Specifically?” he prompted.

“I need to understand the lines of power in this city.”

He was silent a moment, weighing her up. “As if happens, that’s what I’m in this stock for trying to procure.”

“So you can’t help me.”

“On the contrary, my friend. I can point you in the right direction, if you let me out of these chains _and_ —” he paused for her attention when she stepped closer to the release lever. “The information in question is valuable, unimaginably so, and as such I need your word that you will bring it to me. You, of course, can find out what you need to know, and I can find out what I need to know, and we’ll both be happy.”

It was her best shot. She pulled the lever, and he fell forward onto his hands as the manacles released.

“Thank you,” he said. “You have no idea how much those things chafe.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Campbell carries a little black book on his person at all times. In it is every piece of blackmail he has on everybody within the Abbey and in the Parliament, personal notes of every description, including – I believe – information critical to the survival of this city. If you’re trying to understand the lines of power in Dunwall, it’s a perfect place to start. If you can get me that little black book, I’ll owe you more than my life. Anything you want, I can get it for you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she warned.

“I don’t.” The confidence was staggering, considering that a moment ago he’d been freezing to death in the stocks.

“You said the survival of the city depends on this book?”

“Yes, I believe it does. I can’t elaborate, except to say that… well. The Lord Regent has his plans. And _we_ have ours.” She could tell he wasn’t going to be sharing any more about that here, to a complete stranger. She didn’t bother to ask, but she made a note of it. One of the lines of power was looped around _him_. “It’s a pity,” he said.

“What is?”

“I wish I could see the look on Jasper’s face when he finds out I fucked him one last time.” He smiled in a vaguely horrible sort of way, and nodded, “Be seeing you.” He strode from the square a free man.

She almost brought up that Jasper wore an Overseer mask and Martin wouldn’t see his face anyway, but decided against it. The gate into the Abbey’s courtyard was locked, and it sounded like there were people talking not too far away that she wasn’t eager to run into. She turned away from the gate and climbed the crates stacked against the building – presumably some kind of shipment that wasn’t being picked up due to the shutdown of trade – onto the ventilation shafts that hugged the sides of the buildings.

As she edged her way along, the loudspeaker crackled, and out droned Campbell’s voice. “Good morning, faithful citizens of Dunwall. In these uncertain times it is paramount that you reinforce your faith. Perform your daily prayer vigilantly, perhaps even multiple times a day, and you will find yourself protected from the evils that plague us here in Dunwall. Do not give in to sin. Be assured that the Outsider is watching always, ready to prey on those who stray from the path of righteousness.”

“Does the High Overseer broadcast these live from the Abbey?” asked one of the Overseers, who had paused his conversation with his companion when the sermon started.

“I heard he sends audiographs to Dunwall Tower. He’s probably asleep in his office right now. Or on top of a whore.”

“That’s blasphemy.”

“Going to report me, are you? Drag me out to the stocks like Martin? I’ll tell Campbell you loiter around the entrance to his sanctum hoping your Wandering Gaze finds some Wanton Flesh--”

“You bastard.”

Another Overseer was walking their way from the entrance, and the lurking one was looking increasingly nervous at his approach. Although Campbell’s continuing words helped to drown it out, Jessamine heard, “And under Holger’s watch, too. Shame on you, brother.”

“Hold your tongue or I’ll cut it out of your mouth,” he snapped, just before the approaching one got within earshot and they were obliged to greet him with a nod and continue listening to the sermon in silence.

Jessamine found an open window and climbed through, greeted immediately by the sign for the Interrogation Room. Campbell’s office wasn’t far, by her reckoning. She had visited once before, before she was Empress, although obviously she hadn’t come at it through the window. She still had the sleep darts she had stolen from Granny Rags. That was the least unpleasant way she could conceive for this operation. She was no pickpocket; there would be no stealing it from him without his noticing.

She heard a pair of Overseers’ shoes on the carpet around the bend of the corridor and stepped sideways into a passage that held two doors – Interrogation Room again, or Archive. She held her ear against the Archive door for a moment, but there was no time, and she opened the door with nothing but the bare hope that nobody would immediately confront her on the other side. The Archive was a long room, and she made out two figures at the opposite side of it as she entered. One was fishing through one of the catalogue drawers against the wall opposite her, and the other had his head bent over a book at the table, muttering to himself.

She slipped sideways onto the stairs, and was dismayed to hear the steps creaking under her feet, but nobody seemed to be alerted to her presence just yet. The Abbey was an old building, and probably creaked constantly, like Dunwall Tower. She was careful as she moved around the upper levels of the Archive, checking every desk and every shadow for Overseers that might catch her off guard.

“It doesn’t end with Martin. That worm is just a middle-man, weaving a web that stretches across the city…”

“Worms don’t weave webs, you fool.”

“Silk worms do,” objected a third voice.

“Both of you be quiet. I’m trying to think,” the first one chastised. “Why Corvo, the one man feared throughout the Empire?”

Jessamine’s heart skipped a beat. Martin knew Corvo? Could he be part of the _we_ that Martin mentioned, working against Hiram? Feared throughout the Empire – for what? Surely he wasn’t suspected of her murder…

“There’s more here, I just know it,” said the Overseer, while his colleagues dismissed his concerns and told him to pack in his mumbling.

“Look, whoever it was Martin was working for, they’re clearly an idiot. _No one_ gets out of Coldridge Prison. It doesn’t happen. Except in a box.”

_Corvo is in Coldridge Prison._

_Corvo has been in Coldridge Prison for six months._

It took every ounce of Jessamine’s restraint not to run to the Overseer and start wringing information out of him with her hands. It turned her stomach to ask herself the question _why haven’t they killed him yet?_ , but it was pertinent. Coldridge Prison was not a debtor’s jail or penitentiary, where the petty criminals of the Isles would fulfil their sentences and be released, or a madhouse, with patients to be cured. It was merely the final stop before execution, a last chance for penitence.

She clamped her arm around the neck of the Overseer who was bent over his notes and let him down to the ground gently. She glanced over the papers – they weren’t extensive. A map of the old coast, with the flooded district and various other landmarks marked on, a list of Martin’s known actions over the past week, and a file on Corvo. It was almost hilarious how little they seemed to know about him. His birth year was incorrectly listed as 1798, and although that was understandable (he _had_ lied about his age to compete in the Blade Verbena) it was always funny to remember that people believed him to be five years older than he was. That _she_ had believed him to be five years older than he was, when retrospectively he had been so obviously an adolescent upon his arrival at Dunwall Tower.

These Overseers knew barely more than she did about the last six months. She exited the Archive and resumed her search for Campbell, feeling her questions burn her throat as she held them back. His office was empty, but there was a rune on the wall like the one she had seen on Granny Rags’ shrine. She had seen them before, but ever since she woke, they seemed to call to her in distant whalesong, spilling black smoke from the cracks. It had a plaque under it that marked it a constant reminder to resist temptation, and wondered how long it had hung here undisturbed as she lifted it from its mount.

The Overseer outside had mentioned a sanctum that Campbell had somewhere in the Abbey. ‘Under Holger’s watch…’ she searched the office for a silvergraph, painting, or anything that could be said to represent Benjamin Holger, but found nothing. She left the office behind and considered the layout of the Abbey. The building had been refurbished many times – there would likely be several redundant corridors and out-of-the-way passages scattered throughout the building, like at home.

On the stairs, she heard an Overseer coming and looked back – she wasn’t guaranteed a good hiding spot on the landing either, and might instead find herself sandwiched between two Overseers. Surveying her options, something reckless and dreadfully unladylike crossed her mind.

 _No, Jessamine,_ she told herself, _you are not jumping onto the chandelier._ Quite apart from anything else, she didn’t know whether or not she would be able to jump off it again. She hurried back up the stairs and crouched in the shadows, hoping that the Overseer’s limited peripheral vision would be enough to spare her.

When the door at the top of the landing clicked shut behind him, she descended the stairs as quickly as she could. It was too late to go up again when she saw another Overseer coming from the main prayer hall. She vaulted over the stone banister curled behind a tall screen that hid an alcove from the view of the main hall. She checked for representations of Holger, but found none.

Not wanting to attempt to sneak around the main hall, she headed inside the closest door, the one that was marked with a sign ‘TO THE KENNELS’. The corridor was badly lit, and when she got to the bottom, she found one door for the Kennels, and a blank wall, flanked on one side by a stone bust with a severe expression. There was no plaque, but it was hard to mistake him. His eye seemed to be ever so slightly out of place, like somebody had tried to replace the eye he had been stabbed through, which was impressive attention to detail if not quite in line with how Overseers were meant to represent Holger—

Realising, Jessamine pushed the eye, feeling the spring depress behind it as the mechanism deployed to reveal the secret passage. It was very similar to her own in Dunwall Tower, and she wondered if the same architect was responsible for both.

Music was playing from inside the chamber, and the smell of smoke was starting to drift out of it. Jessamine crept closer and the indistinct voices she could hear became clearer. One was most definitely Campbell’s, and the other was a woman—or were there two women? She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this, as she crouched behind the back of a painting. But it was not unsavoury in the way she was expecting.

“So you think you can blackmail me, do you?” Campbell sneered, his usually monotonous voice turned to fury.

“Please, High Overseer, Beatrice didn’t mean—”

“Shut up!”

She risked a look at the bed of pillows, but none of its occupants were in danger of noticing her at this rate. A choking noise that might have been a plea came from Beatrice’s throat as it was clamped by Campbell’s fist. Her colleague cowered in the corner, makeup streaked down her face. Jessamine’s anger just about curbed what would usually be her embarrassment at seeing a stranger’s bare backside.

The courtesan that wasn’t Beatrice saw her approaching, her eyes wide, and she raised a finger to her lips. She jammed the needle of one of her sleep darts into Campbell’s rear. He slurred a few things that Jessamine wouldn’t like to hear repeated and then his hand slackened on Beatrice’s neck, allowing her to heave air into her lungs.

“Did you kill him?” asked the other one apprehensively. _Are you going to kill us?_ was probably the question’s unspoken other half.

“It’s supposed to send him to sleep,” she said. “But I don’t know how it interacts with…” she tilted her head at the bottle of alcohol that was open close by, “Tyvian Morningstar red wine.”

She started to rifle through the pockets of his discarded clothes, and found the little black book, as promised. She flicked through the pages, but it was written in code. Now wasn’t the time or the place to start deciphering it.

Campbell was now snoring loudly. “Will he…” began Beatrice, her voice hoarse. “Will he remember this?”

“You mean will he remember you trying to blackmail him?” she said, and they both flinched. She held up a hand apologetically. “I’ll make sure it isn’t a problem.” She had a few questions for him. Taking him up to the interrogation room seemed fitting… although the stairs posed something of a problem, when they were constantly being patrolled by Overseers.

“You need a distraction?” the other girl said, and Jessamine realised she had been mumbling some of that aloud. A bad habit she ought to break. It was difficult not having Corvo to voice her troubles to.

“A distraction?”

“We can clear the stairs for you,” she offered. “Overseers take a vow of abstinence until marriage. They’re _starving_ for a show like this.”

“You ladies have already risked a lot this evening,” Jessamine said. “I wouldn’t want to put you in further danger.”

“Least we can do. Bea?”

Beatrice nodded, cracking a smile although she was still rubbing her neck. It was likely to bruise, and Jessamine was sure she would hear no end of trouble for it. “We’ve got to fill the hour somehow. The Madame’ll have our heads if we come back early.”

Navigating the stairs was much less nerve-wracking when the whole Abbey’s attention was caught by a pair of ‘harlots’ who were making a scene asking for bids on an evening with them in Holger Square. More and more Overseers gathered to ‘deal with’ the situation, and without the High Overseer casting a disapproving glare about, nobody had broken up the party yet.

Jessamine was quite sure she wasn’t going to lose any sleep over the bruises she was giving Campbell (now clothed, thankfully) by dragging him up the stairs. He was going to have other things to worry about, she thought, contemplating the fire pit and poker that had its place in the Interrogation Room. It was something of a theatre, with a raised section at the back. It was home to a special branding poker and a book with a passage flagged – ‘On Branding Heretics’.

She wasn’t an Overseer, nor was she an expert on the Abbey of the Everyman. But the Seven Strictures – those she knew. There was a rhyme, taught to children. She tallied them against all the things she had found in Campbell’s sanctum. The shining antique platter and Outsider’s rune that had caught his Wandering Gaze; his Restless Hands against Marissa’s neck; the fresh fruit and expensive wines that fed his Rampant Hunger; the Wanton Flesh he indulged in secret; the Roving Feet that took him beyond his quarantine whenever he desired; the Errant-Minded assertion in his audiographs that he served the Empire while all evidence suggested he served only himself. And who could forget the Lying Tongue?

She held her smelling salts under his nose. When he started to rouse himself, she slapped him across the face to jolt him awake. Before he could say anything, she pressed her gloved finger to his lips. “There will be no screaming,” she said. “Do you understand?”

He nodded, dazed.

“Good. Now, High Overseer, I want you to tell me why Corvo Attano is being imprisoned in Coldridge Prison.”

He looked at her as if she was very stupid. “For the murder of the Empress Jessamine Kaldwin.”

She felt the tick of irritation accompanying the rising anger and tried to check it. “Now, Thaddeus, in addition to not screaming, I’m also going to need you not to hide any of the truth from me.” She extracted the red-hot poker from the fire and held it closer to him. He leaned back in the seat, already starting to sweat and strain. “Why is Corvo being _held_ at Coldridge?”

“To confess, to confess! We wanted his confession before his execution, to sell it to the public. We wanted his transition to Lord Regent to be as smooth as possible… of course, that wretch Corvo had other ideas.”

She let the tip of the poker burn his cheek, just a little. As if it were a natural drift of the hand, careless but totally accidental. “What about Princess Emily?” she asked, after he had stopped incoherently whining quite so much.

His upper lip quivered. “Please, have mercy on me! It was Burrows’ plot! He’s to blame, not me! I told him it was a dangerous game he was playing, sooner or later the truth would come out and our heads would roll. Killing an Empress… it’s a tricky business.”

“What about Emily?” she repeated. She filed the confirmation that Burrows had not only taken advantage of her alleged death, but orchestrated it, for future consideration.

“She’ll reappear soon, I’m sure, and the Lord Regent can make a very well-rehearsed speech about loyalty to the Empire and perseverance and making bold choices in hard times… This was nothing to do with me, I assure you. The reputable Dr. Sokolov can tell you I was halfway across the palace grounds when it happened…” he blubbered.

She was feeling the distinct lack of useful information. Jessamine stuck the poker back into the coals, and Campbell started stumbling over weepy thanks for her mercy. There was one more question. “Did Sokolov play a part in this?”

“Oh yes, yes. In truth he was more culpable than I. Inventing all of his machines to keep the dreadful weepers at bay, he hardly needed persuasion.”

He would say anything to save his own skin, she decided. She took a strip of cloth and stuffed his mouth with it, tying it around the back of his head. His muffled and confused cries were ignored as she extracted the branding iron from the coals. She couldn’t have his screaming drawing attention. “Say your prayers, Campbell,” she advised, and he started shaking his head, his eyes wide and watery. She held his face back in the chair and pressed the brand against it, hearing it sizzle against the skin.

Ashes spilled and twirled when she returned the brand to the coals with a _clunk_ , and she straightened her posture and her jacket. She nodded once at Campbell, who seemed to have passed out from the pain. _That was for Corvo_.

Jessamine climbed out of the open window in the corridor opposite the Interrogation Room and walked all the way along the edge to the other side of the Abbey and climbed down the vents at her convenience. Holger Square was occupied with Beatrice and her colleague’s performance, but the back yard was virtually empty. She was sticking close to the walls and remaining unseen by the few Overseers left patrolling, until she heard a young voice in one of the buildings close by.

“Sir, may I use the toilet?”

“Shut up, brat!” came a coarse reply. “Can’t believe I’m babysitting when I could be getting my prick sucked off by Prudie’s best birds.”

The foot-level window that the voices came from was glassless, and looked, from the bricked-up door on the adjacent wall, to be the only entrance to the room. The young voice came from behind a set of bars, running floor-to-ceiling along the width of the room. The remainder seemed to be dedicated to the pacing Overseer. The longer Jessamine looked, the more children she could see behind the bars, huddled together in the pile of dirty mattresses and rags.

When the Overseer’s back was turned, she slipped through the window, dropping carefully and quietly onto the basement floor, and crept towards him. He turned, a wordless exclamation rising from his mask as he saw her, and she jammed her remaining sleep dart into his arm. He reached for his sword with his other hand, but only got it half out of its sheath before he dropped to his knees. She stepped out of the way as he planted his face into the ground, and the captive children stared at her in shock, clinging to each other.

“Let’s get you home, children,” she said, beckoning to them. In turn, the girl who had spoken up to ask for the latrine beckoned to the children, and they helped Jessamine push the storage crates against the wall to form steps to the window.

“Tommy, come on!” one of the children was imploring in a hushed voice, and she found that a young boy, perhaps only three or four years old, was clinging to a threadbare blanket in the cage, sucking his thumb violently and refusing to move.

Jessamine touched the older child’s shoulder gently and told them to help the others. She knelt down with Tommy, and said, “I know you’re scared, but we can’t stay here. We have to go.”

“I don’t want to,” he said around his thumb. “It’s cold out there.”

“I promise I’ll try to keep you warm,” she said, stretching out her arms.

“Tommy, if you don’t come _right now_ , the Outsider’s gonna crawl into your dreams and make your heart cold forever and ever,” threatened one of the other children, and he leapt into Jessamine’s arms instantly.

As she was about to climb the makeshift steps, her eyes caught a book on the table open to a mostly-fresh page. _The following children are ready for transport to Godfrey’s Farm, awaiting passage to Whitecliff: Jude Thornton, Ada Hargreve, Nicholas Reynes, Patrick Fagan, Roland Williams, Zachary Clendon, Thomas Jordan, Kent Hodgson, Catherine Reed_

Jessamine tore the page out and stuffed it, crumpled, into her pocket. Emerging back into the Abbey’s yard, she asked the outspoken girl whether she knew the way home.

“Yes, miss. I live in the old theatre on Framling Street.”

“The old theatre?”

“Yes, miss. Don’t worry,” she reached for Tommy, and he reached back, his thumb never leaving his mouth as he was passed into her hands, “I’ll make sure everyone who’s got a home gets home, and everyone who don’t gets to stay with me.”

“Hey!” shouted an Overseer, and most of the kids were already running, not needing Jessamine’s push on their shoulder to vanish into the shadows of Dunwall, led by a street urchin who she would probably never learn the name of. She turned to confront the Overseer, perhaps planning to simply wrestle him to the ground and steal his sword before he had a chance to draw it, but the man hadn’t picked up his pace at all, walking towards her at a brisk walk.

“Martin has a message for you,” he said, not sounding pleased to be playing the messenger. “He says you can drop off the package at the third water-gate on the Old Lamprow Canal. There will be someone there who can answer your questions.”

How novel. “Thank you,” she said, and turned to go.

He caught her arm. “And you tell that snake Martin, his man better be there to pick up my sister. We had a deal.”

Jessamine didn’t know why, but she found that notion distantly funny.


	3. Her Still Beating Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hidden in an old bar on the river, the Loyalists make themselves known with an offer. The Outsider has one of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: references to child death

He always tried to dance around the subject, but Hiram had thought her too trusting. He would never say it to her face, but it was in the way he bristled whenever she extended courtesies to people he deemed untrustworthy. She let it happen, because he was the Spymaster. He was more or less supposed to distrust everybody.

But he was wrong. She didn’t trust everybody – she just trusted her ability to deal with them. She wasn’t stupid, and the hidden agendas of most everyone she interacted with weren’t lost on her. She had people for deciphering those agendas, quadruple-checking her own deductions. More than once, she had had the impression that Hiram would be much more comfortable if he were in charge of the Empire, instead of leaving anything to the Empress’ discretion. If he had had his way, he would have started pointing the finger at notable members of Parliament the moment anything went wrong, branding them as traitors on a hunch. Her shut-down of that approach was not implicitly _trusting_ of her government, but because there would be no faster way to make enemies.

Hiram did not care for diplomacy, but he had excellent tact. He knew just which information to plant where and with who at what time. It was how he’d pulled the wool over her eyes to begin all this business with the quarantines and convinced a few key players that his plan was the best one for their pockets.

Because she had trusted him, at least, to do what was best for her people. Ha.

“Ah,” said the man with the boat. “You’ll be who I was waitin’ for, then.”

“You’ll be who I was meeting,” said Jessamine, interlocking her hands behind her back. “I’m told you can answer some of my questions.”

He chuckled, “Oh, not me. I’m just the boatman. But there’s some folks who’d like to meet you, if you’d accompany me down the river. See, my employers ain’t too keen to be seen by the Watch these days. You understand.”

She did understand. But getting aboard a boat with a stranger was exactly the kind of risk that she had decided she was going to avoid. Martin’s messenger had said that the man by the canal would be able to answer her questions, and although she wasn’t surprised to find that that wasn’t the case, she was wary. If she was at court, there were people she could turn to for advice, or information. What she lacked now was Maia, her most thorough secretary, who would have been able to rattle off five reasons why trusting Martin and his people was beneficial (as well as who all the people were), and eighteen reasons it was potentially catastrophic.

But she didn’t have Maia, and she didn’t have any other avenues to investigate. She needed allies or, at the very least, she needed to get the lay of the land. “Why should I trust you?” she asked outright.

He puffed a long breath out from his cheeks and replied, “I don’t rightly know you should, ma’am. Awful hard to find people to trust, and I wouldn’t give it out easy if I was you.”

That was fair, but didn’t give her anything to work with, aside from the impression that this man was the pragmatic type. The dissection of his voice was automatic – she hardly realised she was doing it at first. His voice was gruff, unrefined. Gristol native if she was judging the accent correctly, originating in the counties that surrounded Dunwall and took up much of the isle’s north mainland. Paired with the slender, slightly roughed-up skiff, she thought it was fair to assume he’d been in the Navy, or at any rate, that he had spent some time at sea.

“Then why should you trust me?” she asked.

He blinked a moment, and then smiled, “I don’t got much of a choice, matter of fact. We need someone what can help us with our plans, and if we don’t trust someone, nothing’ll ever get done.” He dipped his head in place of a handshake. “I’m Samuel.”

She dipped her head in response. For a moment he said nothing, but raised an eyebrow. She realised with a start that he had expected her to introduce herself in turn. She was so unused to not being recognised – and not having her name announced on her behalf – that it hadn’t even occurred to her. She would be grateful later, because it had afforded her an extra second to pluck a name from the air, instead of answering reflexively that it was Jessamine.

“Hana,” she said. “A pleasure, I’m sure.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, ma’am,” he said, and offered a hand, this time to help her aboard the boat named, according to the drippy and faded paint on the side, _Amaranth_. Still not a demand or a presumption, as his face was still painted with the question. She weighed it for a moment, but decided that she did not come to meet Samuel just to leave without the answers she needed. She was sure Martin had been banking on that fact.

Samuel smiled when she took his hand, when the boat started and they pulled away from the bank of the canal. As the skiff puttered along, he gave her idle facts about the waterways and the various landmarks they were passing, like a tour guide. He shook his head, giving a crooked smile to the water ahead of them, and said, “I reckon I know the Wrenhaven better than I know the Seven Strictures.”

That would be quite impressive, if true. The Strictures were often the very first thing children learned to write, at the school of observance that the Abbey ran. “How long have you been sailing?”

“Oh, since I was just a lad. Almost gave it up a few times, but the water, the sea… it calls. Can’t ignore it.”

“Some people say that’s the great leviathans, luring men to their deaths.”

“Maybe so,” he shrugged. “That’s what my father always said, at any rate. Go out too far, you’re just fish bait.”

They were heading downriver, north-east towards the ruins of the Rudshore Financial District. Jessamine hoped bleakly that she wasn’t being taken to the flooded district to be disposed of where only hagfish and river krusts could find her. They were passing a crumbling piece of what she judged to be the waterfront of the Old Port District, up against the edge of the old port. The water had affected the already crumbling architecture before it was pushed back, leaving an old tenement building as a teetering tower. Samuel indicated it and the buildings behind it.

“This is the Hound Pits Pub. Closed for business. We’re right up against the flooded district here. Makeshift dams keeping the water out. Half the district’s marked off dead from the plague anyway. No one’ll look for us out here.”

“This is our destination?” she asked, unable to mask either her surprise of her distain.

Samuel responded, “No man’s land, as far as the gangs are concerned. And the Admiral happens to be a notable patron of the bar, so the lady of the house’s lettin’ us stay here. Not that she had much of a choice. Business ain’t exactly booming.”

As they got closer, Jessamine realised that it wasn’t as bad as it had looked at first glance – at least she was trying to believe so. The tower looked like a deathtrap, but the other buildings seemed relatively unharmed – she supposed that the former tenement building had taken the brunt of the water damage. The grounds were shabby, but she was given to believe that everywhere was these days. She couldn’t picture Dunwall Tower Gardens in anything but their constant immaculate state, but it was perhaps the exception.

 _Amaranth_ moored, Samuel offered her his hand again and stepped out of the boat with her. “I’ll take you up to meet Admiral Havelock and the rest of the Loyalists,” he indicated a shabby-looking but clearly once-ornate door, and then added, “The Admiral’s a man to be reckoned with.”

He didn’t enter the pub with her, instead leaning against the outside wall and lighting a cigar. Two men were talking at the bar – she recognised the weedy one as one of the Lords Pendleton.

Whatever hushed conversation they were having came to an end when she entered. The other man, presumably Admiral Havelock, raised his glass at her. “Ah, the woman of the hour. I hear we have you to thank for getting Martin safely out of Holger Square. I am Admiral Havelock, a true servant of the Empire, as I believe you are too. That is, until the Lord Regent purged those of us who wouldn’t recognise his claim on the throne.”

“And I am Lord Treavor Pendleton. I represent the nobility in our little group,” he bowed. He hurried to add, “But we all act as equals here at the Hound Pits Pub.”

 _I’m sure you do_ , Jessamine thought, and thankfully she was well-practiced at keeping a straight face in court. Treavor’s Lordship was a courtesy title only – his brothers held a position in the court on the insistence of their father’s will. She remembered the debacle well. The late Isaac Michael Pendleton had occupied only one spot in the peerage, as he was only one man, yet he bequeathed his twin sons a position each. According to Treavor’s account, they shared everything, and bestowing the title on one rather than the other was sure to cause irreparable tension in the family and the court at large. She suspected Treavor had brought this to her attention in the hopes that she would decide that the unattached Pendleton brother may receive the titles instead. She had let the twins take it as long as they agreed to vote jointly.

“We’ve been building a coalition of loyalists aimed at ending the Lord Regent’s tyranny and restoring the throne,” Havelock continued. It occurred to her what this spiel reminded her of. It was not a discussion; it was an advertising campaign.

Treavor took the baton and said, “At risk of execution, we’re committed to finding her Royal Highness Princess Emily and seeing her crowned as Empress.”

As much as Jessamine would have liked to continue internally disparaging them, Emily’s name left no room for humour in her mind. If these men, myopic as they were, had a chance of finding Emily, then she would agree to anything.

“We’ve got big plans, but we need someone to put them into the real world. Certain key players in Dunwall need to go down if we want to stand any chance of putting an end to the Lord Regent’s reign. Martin thinks that you’re the one to help us do that. So what do you say?”

Empress Jessamine Kaldwin would say this was a narrow-minded plan that left far too much to the imagination. Rescue Emily, yes, take down the Lord Regent, yes, but a nine-year-old— (Ten-year-old. Void, Emily was ten.) a ten-year-old couldn’t rule an Empire. Traditionally an underage heir would be appointed a regent until they came of age, but who would trust a regent after a catastrophe like this? In ancient tradition, it was the Lord Protector’s job, but given the state of Corvo’s reputation in the Empire…

(She needed to free Corvo. She needed to clear his name.)

The problems in Dunwall did not begin and end with the Lord Regent. Had Havelock forgotten the plague ravaging everybody who couldn’t pass through the paywall of elixir and self-quarantine? What about the gang war tearing up the city into factions? The corruption of the City Watch, the prevalence of the black market? All of these problems were making each other worse, and untangling them would take someone more grown up than her daughter. Did these “Loyalists” suppose they would be making decisions on her behalf, she wondered? Was that loyalty? Or just another bay for power?

“I assume I’m not your first choice,” she said.

Both men looked startled, and exchanged a glance. “Why do you ask?” Pendleton said.

“Because in that whole rehearsed speech, you left no room to ask me my name,” she answered. She couldn’t risk being the Empress right now. These were monster-infested waters, the kind that pirate captains battled in Emily’s favourite storybooks. Play her cards too soon, and they’d devour her whole.

There was a laugh behind her, and she turned to see Martin on his way in to the bar. “What did I tell you?” he nodded past her at the other two Loyalists. “Sharp as a knife, this one. We did have other plans, but they fell through. People let us down. I take it from your presence here, though, that you did not.” He held out his hand, and after a moment – was she considering keeping it for herself? She wasn’t even sure – she handed over the book. Martin’s smile grew. “Excellent. I’ll get to work decoding this right away. We’ll have a map of the Gristish aristocracy by tomorrow. And the name to which I owe my life…?”

“Hana,” she said.

“Make yourself at home, Hana,” he said, correcting his accent back to Whitecliff standard. It made her realise that he had been speaking with a hint of southern Morley diction, a moment ago. “I look forward to working with you further.”

“We have equipment that might be useful to you,” Havelock said, with a tick of mild irritation in his voice. Clearly, Martin was off-script. “That is to say, our specialist Piero. You passed his workshop on the way in. I’m… sure he’ll be pleased to meet the new spearhead of our campaign.”

“He can be challenging at times,” Pendleton warned, “but his industrious mind buys him that right. He’s as much an artist as a technician.”

“I find myself perfectly capable of judging people’s character on my own, thank you,” she said, perhaps a little more biting than she intended. She needed these people in order to find Emily, it was no use making enemies of them. “I apologise. I have had… a long day.”

“Of course. Lydia can show you to your room – I’ll have her meet you outside Piero’s workshop.”

When she left the bar, Samuel had left to go about his business and she felt acutely the absence of somebody watching her back. She felt most at ease with Corvo as her bodyguard, but there were others. There had to be. Even the newest had been on rotation in the Tower for a decade before he was given the duty of guarding the Empress. Sean Peters was his name. She wondered where Sean was, now.

The shutter had been lifted up at the front of the workshop, and inside, a bespectacled man had his head bent over blueprints and was scratching away with a pen. He didn’t look at her stood on the threshold as he said, “So you’re the assassin.”

She had noticed how Havelock referred to her – spearhead. Tool. Vital, but easily broken off. Piero’s approach was more blunt, and not much kinder. She thought it unfair that he should hold so much contempt for someone he couldn’t even be bothered to look in the eye, but she kept her manners in check. “Piero, I presume. I hear you are the genius behind the equipment I will be using in the course of my employment.”

Piero looked up and didn’t quite frown as he adjusted his glasses. It certainly wasn’t a smile, and wasn’t quite remorse, but he at least seemed to realise that he had been rude, and stood. “Forgive me if I seem impatient with you – in truth it is our employers who’ve irked me. They commissioned tools for a certain _type_ of person, and you… you are not what I expected, suffice to say.” He dragged a trunk into the open space of the workshop and opened it. “This was to be left for our original candidate. Feel free to try these weapons out, but they likely won’t be balanced correctly. The clothes won’t fit, and the mask…” he sighed forlornly. “I fear the mask is not meant to be. Come back to me later, and I will have stripped out the lenses. You can at least get some use out of those.”

Her hand went first to the item with the grip. A hilt without a blade, at first glance, but it was much heavier than expected. She squeezed and released, letting the mechanism twist out, and the blade extended with a _shing_. Comparative to its true size, it actually felt fairly light. She squeezed the hilt again, and it stayed out.

“It’s a double-tap to make it retract,” Piero supplied, and she did so. “Tell me, what do you have experience with? I could develop something specialised, if what we have here is not to your liking.”

There was a pistol and a miniature crossbow in the trunk, as well. All heavy-hitting weapons, none of which she had any formal training with. Fencing, clay pigeon shooting, and a little archery, she had learned as a Princess, but this was no friendly sparring match or recreational sport, and the tools she had she was unfamiliar with. But there were less… official experiences she could draw from. “Concealed blades and throwing knives,” she said. “Both for close and medium range, if possible.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding pleased and surprised.

When she was finished giving her specifications to Piero, she left the workshop and found a gaunt and slightly messy young woman waiting for her. “Lydia?” Jessamine asked.

“No ma’am, Cecelia. Lydia is the hostess here, or she was anyway, before the pub closed, but um, she asked me to escort you to your room.” She motioned to follow her indoors, to a door that led directly to the stairs. “Mister Havelock always asks for Lydia, but usually Lydia gives the job to me. Oh—and that’s fine,” she added hurriedly. “She’s very busy. I don’t mind.”

“Mister Havelock,” Jessamine started, but was interrupted by Cecelia.

“Oh, I said Mister, didn’t I? So sorry, I meant Admiral, miss. Ma’am.”

“That’s alright, Cecelia,” she said softly. “He said the Lord Regent purged the people who resisted his regency. I suspect that means the gentleman _isn’t_ an admiral anymore.” _Just as Pendleton is only technically a Lord, and Martin is no longer an Overseer._

“He prefers to be called Admiral,” she said quietly. So she already knew, then, that this was a coalition of once-weres. She was keeping her mouth shut about it. Smart girl. She led them to the top floor, to a collection of dusty, almost-barren rooms that were clearly not usually used for visitors because of the layout. “These are your chambers,” Cecelia said. “I hope they’re to your liking. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do. Ah, oh, and please could you make sure to blow out your candles when it gets dark? We can’t risk being spotted across the river. Lydia says it’s romantic.”

Romantic. In the way that a leviathan calling unwary travellers into the uncharted depths of the world was romantic. In the way that the bones of a dashing explorer, exposed as a storm broiled the clouds and pulled the ocean away from the cliffs, were romantic. In the way that the built-over ruins of the Old City, before the Morgengaard dynasty and before the Abbey of the Everyman, were romantic. The romance of disaster.

“Thank you, Cecelia,” she said, deciding that she rather preferred the colloquial meaning of romance. Cecelia had turned sheepish, perhaps thinking that she was sharing too much. It was obvious that she had never had any formal training in servitude, but Jessamine didn’t mind it. “This will do just nicely.”

Jessamine could not sleep. She tried – lay down on the mattress and closed her eyes and tried to alleviate the exhaustion that she was sure she had to be feeling. Instead she found her thoughts racing, skipping like stones over water. She couldn’t take her mind off Emily, out in Dunwall somewhere, believing her mother to be dead.

Jessamine had been a little older than Emily when her mother died. It had felt like she lost her entire family at once; first Jessamine’s newborn sibling, who lived to suffer for only three days. Then her mother, the victim of complications after a premature childbirth, succumbed to death’s embrace. Her father withdrew into his duties, taking Cyril, his Royal Protector, with him. By that time even Delilah was gone – her “secret sister” and those games they used to play, finished. Forgotten.

She had spent hours asking after her father until he agreed to see her, and when she asked where her friend had gone, Father had told her that Delilah’s mother was ill, and they had gone away. She had asked when they would be back and whether she could visit them at the Addermire Institute – where she imagined all sick people went. She had kept asking for a while, but eventually she had stopped. Eventually she had had a new sibling to look forward to. Until she didn’t.

She became too old to wish after a playmate, to imagine a secret sister or a baby brother. Increasingly she had real responsibilities at court, many of which had been her mother’s. As her father’s age advanced, she was expected to make more and more appearances in place of both of her parents. She found herself kept to a more rigid schedule, and never left to her own devices due in part to the presence of her faithful, silent Lord Protector. She was a young woman before she knew it, without a thought to spare to her friend, or her mother… or her brother. Johannes. He had never been named, not formally, but that was what she had called him, and her mother said she’d liked it. Johannes, or Hans for short.

She hadn’t realised she was thinking about him, but there it was. The name she’d chosen. Hana. Short for Johanna.

She felt herself plunge from the edge of sleep and when she took a sharp breath in, she felt the ice in her throat. An old pub on the edge of the water with the occasional glassless window scattered throughout, in the Month of High Cold – this was not going to be pleasant. But even as she contemplated that fact, and began considering taking her blanket down to the boiler room to spend the night there, Jessamine sensed something wrong. There seemed to be a strange kind of moonlight coming from outside in the dusky sky. She tried the door – locked – and felt a gust of wind tear through her. When she turned, she saw that the Hound Pits had fallen away into nothingness, leaving chunks of the infrastructure floating in the void.

The Void. She was in the Void.

Venturing to the edge of what remained of the bedroom, she found a stone staircase spiralling down, and after a moment, followed it. When she reached a flat platform again, she found that the ‘sky’ above her was open again, the remnants of the Hound Pits vanished. In the distance, she could see ships and whales, heedless of gravity or the absence of an ocean.

“Hello, Jessamine.”

She whirled to see a black-eyed young man, floating about a foot off the ground. His face was passive as he tilted his head down. It was hard to tell, but he could have been eyeing her balled-up fists. “What do you want from me?” she demanded.

“Come now, Majesty,” he said, sounding bored and a little disappointed. He glided around her. “You’re the one who asked for my help. Remember?”

“I didn’t…” she trailed off. She had the strangest sense of déjà vu, like a shiver running through her blood. She remembered the gazebo, washed red like the coat of the man who drove his sword through her chest. Her own voice echoed through the Void on the wind. She didn’t remember speaking those words, but she felt an unshakable certainty that she was hearing a glimpse of the past.

_“What is this place? Where’s Emily? How did I… survive the assassin? Answer me!”_

_“You didn’t, my dear Empress. Daud stilled your heart. Now your kingdom crumbles.”_

_“Send me back. You have to send me back!”_

There was a horrible whining sound, something like a tuning fork, and the fragment faded. The Outsider smiled. “I asked you how far you were willing to go. What you were willing to become.”

She felt her hand burn cold and clutched it, crying out. An ancient symbol appeared on the back, black as a starless night, just like the Outsider’s eyes.

“This was your answer.”

When she looked up, he was gone, and there was a path laid out in front of her – stepping stones set into the nothingness. Following the Outsider into the depths of the Void was the contract that signed her own damnation according to every parable from the Abbey, every old story whispered in the dead of night. But there was no way back, only forward, and perhaps she could learn something valuable.

She came to a stepping stone with too large a gap between it and the next for her to comfortably jump. The Mark on the back of her hand itched, and for a moment it was like she could feel them; the lines of power that flowed and eddied inside the Void, connecting people and places with invisible currents. She felt that power being channelled through her Mark, and she took the chance and jumped.

She was able to jump much further and fall much slower than she believed possible. Perhaps it was the Void itself that was affording her this ability – but as she continued, she became more convinced that the ability was hers so long as she could tap into these lines of power. The rune in her pocket, already, was buzzing with life as if it was waiting to release the energy of the Void into her.

Her thoughts, racing at the possibilities, were stopped when she was led through a scene that she had a horrible feeling was happening in a Dunwall street, right now. She recognised the dried blood crusted around the eyes of one of her subjects, running for her life as a monstrous contraption, a stilt-walker, aimed their bow at her. Another one of the plagued people was on fire, and another was being devoured in gruesome frozen time by rats.

“Where’s Emily?” she asked the air, knowing the Outsider had to be listening. “Is she… is she safe?”

The bricks below her feet fell away, and before she had time to scramble, she had jarred her knees on a platform below – dusty wooden floors. There was a glow of lantern-light warming the array of brightly-coloured cushions laid out on the floor, and with her back to the light was curled Emily. She was wearing ill-fitting clothes, the summer suit she had been snatched in crumpled on the floor beside her makeshift bed. Her hands were tucked close to her chest, but her doll was missing and she looked bare without it. Jessamine knelt down and reached for her unbrushed, too-long hair, but her fingers didn’t affect any change to the knots when she tried to comb them through. It was much longer than it had ever been before – six months without the palace stylist taking her scissors to it.

Emily was surrounded by drawings, most of them scribbled in newspaper margins or the backs of posters. Whales, cities, looming figures, cats and rats. She hadn’t stopped telling stories, either, she would wager. Or trying to escape what grown-ups expected of her. “Stay strong, darling. I’m coming for you.”

“How sweet,” cooed the Outsider. She glared at him, towering above them with his hands clasped behind his back. Then she looked back to Emily, sleeping on the floor of whatever dingy hideout they had found for her, and let her expression soften again.

“Show me Corvo,” she said. “Please. I need to see him.”

The Outsider raised an eyebrow, and then lifted a hand, and the Void rearranged itself around them. Bricks fell into place until she was standing in front of a cell. On the cot was Corvo, hunched and grim. His hair was longer and straggly, his hands clasped together and covered in muck. Most of him was in shadow.

Her heart ached. “Oh, my dear Corvo…” _I will come for you. Just hold on._

“What a sad hand fate has dealt him. The beloved Empress dead, and everyone thinks he’s the killer.” The Outsider materialised out of the shadows of the cell and sat down beside Corvo. “But we know what really happened, don’t we?” he murmured conspiratorially into his ear.

“Don’t touch him,” she said, hands closing around the bars separating them as she stepped closer.

The Outsider looked up. He was somehow more unsettling when his face was in shadow, when she couldn’t see his eyes. He stood, and the prison deconstructed itself, her love disappearing into shadow as the light shifted.

The thing that appeared above the Outsider’s open palm was grotesque. Utterly repulsive and utterly transfixing all at once, and that was before she even understood the shape of it; before she saw it sputter and pump unnaturally. It disappeared from his hand and reappeared in hers, and whatever she may have expected it to feel like, it was not. It was cold, like condensation on glass, and it when it beat, it felt like the curl of a snake shifting on her skin. She felt the weight of it and the way her hand wrapped so snugly around it, and it occurred to her that this thing was no bigger than Emily’s fist.

“What, by the sun in the sky…” she stared at the porthole that seemed to be carved into it, and it suddenly began to glow from the inside.

 _“We shouldn't be here. No one should,”_ shivered the voice of a child.

“Who is this?” she demanded. Her hand had tightened around the heart instinctively, but she tried to slacken her grip, in case it was hurting the child.

_"Someday this place will devour all the lights in the sky."_

“Who have you trapped in here?”

The Outsider’s chest rose and then fell as if he was sighing, but no air seemed to pass through him when he did. “That,” he gestured, “is the heart of one of your subjects. A young boy who died from the plague. He wants to end the tyranny in this city as badly as you do, maybe even more so. The vessel you are holding is merely the vehicle of his vengeance.”

She felt sick. “He’s just a child!”

“That didn’t save him,” he said coolly. “How you use these gifts comes down to you, as it did for all those who came before you, and all those who will come after.”

She looked up at him. “What do you get in return?”

“Why, Your Imperial Majesty,” he grinned, exposing the pointed teeth of a whale. “I get to watch.”

Jessamine woke with a start to a feeling like icewater in her veins. The attic of the Hound Pits seemed suddenly topsy turvy, as if it was the Void that had been the right way around, and she struggled for a moment to stop the room from spinning. She was still clutching the boy’s heart in her hand, and the Mark glared out from her skin.

She brought her knees closer and cupped the Heart in both hands. “Do you have a name?” she asked him, hushed.

The glow returned from its inside, and he said, _“I’m so cold.”_

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. She pulled him close to her chest, as if he were just a child who’d had a nightmare, just sweet Emily in need of consoling. “I’ll try to keep you warm.”

When she donned her gloves to go downstairs, his weight seemed to vanish from her hand. She felt panic clutch at her, instinctively looking down although she knew she hadn’t dropped him. But as her hand came back into view, she realised that he was still there – or rather that he reappeared, as his weight returned to her palm. She checked several times that he was still there by putting him away and pulling him out again, but he seemed to take up no space in her coat at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Jessamine doesn't remember it, anyone curious about how that first meeting between Jessamine and the Outsider went should know that I imagine it similar to what redcherrychocolate wrote in [The Beat of Her Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/682306), a gorgeous fic that I recommend in its own right.


	4. The Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Campbell’s journal and the help of the Loyalists, Jessamine is on the cusp of finally finding Emily. She’ll have to infiltrate the Golden Cat and deal with the Pendleton twins, who are as nasty as she remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: death

She felt dirty. And it felt silly to worry about it, but she could feel the layer of grime on her skin and her clothes, after years of being bathed daily, being adorned with fresh clothes multiple times a day. It was hard, in the attic of the Hound Pits Pub with the cold whistling through the rooms in which the frayed wooden floors threatened splinters, not to wish for the comforts of home. In particular the comforts of Leanne, her Mistress of Household, and Peri and Sara, the maids who bathed and dressed her each morning.

There had been a phase, in her teenage years, where she had been angry at the lack of independence, the feeling of being babied to the point of not being allowed to dress herself, but it had become a fact of life quickly enough, like everything else. She had grown accustomed to being surrounded by people constantly, and the Hound Pits Pub felt, strangely, exceedingly empty and not at all private at the same time.

Jessamine had finished her breakfast and was letting Cecelia clear away her plate (something she was used to, and yet somehow felt different and more uncomfortable here) when she made up her mind to broach the topic. “On the subject of bathing…” she began, and almost succeeded in startling Cecelia into dropping the dishes.

“Oh!” she said, when she understood her meaning rather than just reacting to the sound. “I can draw you a bath, miss. Ma’am.”

“Wonderful,” she said, pleased with this outcome. “I will visit Piero while I wait. I daresay he is awake; his workshop has been noisy for as long as I’ve been awake at least.”

When she stepped outside, the Heart started to beat audibly. Diverted from the workshop, she found herself digging around in the mud for a rune that was wailing in the reedbeds. Now she _definitely_ felt in need of a bath – but there was a satisfied buzz under her skin when she picked up the rune that was either very good or the beginning of the Void-madness that the Abbey liked to preach about.

When she was seventeen, there was an attempt on Princess Jessamine’s life. Not her first brush with death nor the last, but the first time the attack had not also included her father. She had been acting as regent temporarily while her father was in ill health, and it was later supposed that the assassin intended to end the Kaldwin line, banking on the rumour that the Emperor was on death’s door, and his only daughter’s death would send him over the edge. Corvo had apprehended the would-be assassin before Jessamine even noticed she was there, but that was not as reassuring as it was meant to be. Her governesses had taught her house etiquette – that the serving staff were to be invisible. That training had almost cost her life, so she worked hard over the next few months to undo it. Taking account of all the servants and guards, learning all their names, memorising their regular patrol patterns. It had been an exhausting addition to an already chaotic and tight schedule, and people started to notice, so she had to change her approach. Noticing everything was Corvo’s job, but she, at least, could be ready when he did.

He found her throwing knives at a target in the dead of night, and though he’d tried to indicate he hadn’t been watching long in order to spare her blush, she suspected he had witnessed her entire clumsy escape into the empty “under-refurbishment” wing of the Tower (the recession in Gristol deemed the necessary repairs impossible without taking money from her citizens, which she had refused to do, so it would be a full two years before the wing was open again). He had taken the knives from her and showed her, first, how to stand solid, and balance, and jump up on her feet after a forward-roll. He had shown her how to hold a knife, how to disarm someone else of a knife, where to shove a knife to make it hurt versus kill an assailant.

She had chosen Corvo as her Lord Protector because he was the best swordsman in the Isles and his dark, keen eyes didn’t miss a trick. While others made loud proclamations of loyalty and honour, he was quiet, and let his actions speak for him. What she learned over the course of that year, though, was not just how to throw knives, but that Corvo had a beautiful smile.

When Piero gave her the throwing knives she had requested, and began a fitting for a hidden blade that he proposed strapped to the inside of her arm, it was Corvo’s smile she thought of. She hadn’t done this much pining since her father was Emperor.

She was also given an eyepiece that hooked around her ear and the bridge of her nose. Something like a very elaborate, secure monocle, with two magnification settings depending on the number of lenses slotted into place. It fitted over her left eye, on top of the mask she had taken from Granny Rags’ collection. The eyepiece folded neatly away, almost like a compass, that she could slip into her pocket.

 _“Piero Joplin,”_ said the Heart in its echoing, young voice. She could feel it pulsing in her pocket, all of a sudden. _“He dreams about a nameless, bloody-eyed boy, and a hole in the world.”_

When she left Piero’s workshop, she took the gruesome thing from her pocket. The little glass porthole that was set into the muscle was dark. She squeezed it – gently, like the comforting press of one hand against another, she hoped – and it illuminated from the inside.

He whispered, _"Before the sun rises they toss any casualties into the river. Men or hound - they all go in."_

As she saw Cecelia coming downstairs to inform her that her bath was ready, the Heart said, _"The other servants call her simple. But she sees what others don’t.”_ Cecelia didn’t seem to notice him any more than Piero had, and for that, she was quite grateful. It would be difficult to explain a pulsing, Void-soaked heart filled with clockwork to anybody, she thought. She didn’t really understand it herself.

So the boy saw secrets. Fragments of hearts and lives heard through the Void, and relayed to her in a whisper only she could hear. As she bathed, he shared things about the Hound Pits Pub. Not all of it was coherent, and almost none of it was tethered to a specific time. He would talk about the days when the pub was open before the plague, before the third floor was bricked up and the tenement survived only by the ‘tower’ crumbled down and washed away. Then he would abruptly change to tales of the Gristish lord who had occupied the property before he went bankrupt and sold it, to go and live down south with his cousin. Once or twice, although Jessamine couldn’t be sure, she thought he might be talking about the future.

She explored the pale scar at the top of her abdomen with her fingers and considered what the Heart might see in Dunwall’s future.

Once she was clean, Cecelia brought her fresh clothes at her request, and she struggled again for some minutes with her hair. She had never had to dress it herself before, as she preferred it down to the slicked-up tower that had become her signature look. “How do you get your hair to stay like that?” she asked Cecelia eventually, who once again looked startled to have been addressed directly.

She hooked a strand of her red hair behind her ear and mumbled, “Lydia can do it much nicer, ma’am.”

“It doesn’t need to be pretty,” she said. “Just out of my way.”

She bit her lip, but said, “Yes, ma’am,” and took her hair into her fingers. When she was done, Jessamine touched the updo tentatively – it was low-slung, resting on the back of her neck, twisted together in strands somewhere between a braid and a bun. She checked her reflection in a shiny golden plaque that sat behind the bar, and thanked Cecelia sincerely.

She found Martin in the bar, bent over Campbell’s black book and surrounded by other notes. “Good morning, Hana,” he said, not looking up. “I trust you slept well. As you can see, Farley already has me hard at work. I’m sure we’ll have something for you to do again soon. I didn’t say before – nice work with Campbell. Branding him a heretic discredited everything he ever said, including his support of the Lord Regent. If we can tug on those lines of power you mentioned, we might be able to get someone instated that will withdraw the Overseers’ support.”

From what she had heard of Martin’s connections so far, she didn’t struggle to believe that he had a candidate in mind, or that he would have no trouble getting them where he wanted them. “Have you found anything about Princess Emily?” she asked.

He sighed at the papers spread out in front of him. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. He not only wrote this whole book in High Tyvian – sacrilegious if you ask me, but I’m only a disgraced Overseer, what do I know? – but in code as well. We don’t want to make a move before we have all the facts. If the Lord Regent’s men catch wind of what we’re doing, they might move her, and then finding her will be almost impossible.”

Jessamine supposed, with not a small amount of revile, that he knew this from the ‘recruitment programme’ for Whitecliff. She still needed him, though, and it wasn’t as if her admonishment of the Abbey’s unsavoury practices would be productive at the moment. Not when she was a common hired gun, and he was a stockaded Overseer.

 _"He has been a soldier, a highway robber and a man of faith,”_ the Heart added helpfully. _“None of these seem to describe him any more.”_

She spent the rest of the day getting used to her surroundings, in order to keep from worrying about Emily. She found a pocket notebook and began to make notes on the other occupants of the pub, gathered through either her own observations or the Heart’s. She made a map of each floor of the Hound Pits, noting where each person slept and – she would be ashamed to admit to anyone else – glancing over Havelock’s journal, playing Pendleton’s audiographs until she heard his manservant, Wallace, on the stairs and stopped. She climbed out of the window to evade him, and noted which of the doors and windows were locked.

The building across the courtyard from the bar, adjacent to what seemed to be a former-distributor of Cullero Cigars, was the hound pits themselves. The Heart seemed to shudder at the memory of the kennels when her hand even met the doorhandle, bloody hounds bred for this purpose, tearing each other apart for their own survival. Jessamine had never seen a dogfight, and she was sorry that the boy had had to.

She spoke for a short time with Lydia who, during open hours, usually tended to the patrons of the pub. She had first met Havelock as a regular, when he and his friends in the Navy had drunk there regularly on their stays in Dunwall. When the former proprietor, a man named Mr. Manson, had had to sell the bar in his old age, Havelock – newly Commodore Havelock at the time – had bought the place for nostalgia’s sake. He took his ownership of the bar seriously, although most of the actual management was down to Lydia. Lydia was not at all like Jessamine’s household manager at Dunwall Tower, but she seemed just as efficient.

There was one other member of the “Loyalist Coalition” staying at the pub, who nobody had thought to introduce her to. She supposed that there was no particular reason to have the aspiring governess to the Royal Heir introduced to the assassin they had picked up off the street to do their dirty work for them. Jessamine would have had her doubts that Havelock could covertly find a governess to suit Emily when her head of staff had been struggling with the dilemma for years, but she knew Callista Curnow. At the very least knew of her – the beloved niece of Captain Curnow, who in turn was the Royal Guardsman that Corvo had trusted to accompany him on his tour around the Isles. She thought she remembered seeing Callista before, when she had come to the Tower to drop something off for her uncle, but no formal introductions had been made. After exchanging a few words, Jessamine concluded that she was less likely to recognise her than Pendleton was (considering the amount of time Pendleton apparently spent in an inebriated haze, it was a very low chance).

“I know that you didn’t have it in mind when you removed the High Overseer,” Callista said suddenly, after the small talk had tapered out, “but I just wanted to say—I wanted to thank you. I think your actions may have saved my uncle’s life. He’s a good man. He was demoted from the Royal Guard to the City Watch when the Empress died, and he’s not meant for it. Martin’s sources told us that people within the Watch and without have been trying to get rid of him for months. Campbell was planning to kill him if he didn’t succumb to the corruption necessary for their evil schemes.”

“If my actions helped Captain Curnow, I’m glad for it,” she said. She was confused by the surprise on Callista’s face in the next moment – did she believe the world so uncaring that a person (even an assassin) couldn’t be grateful they had saved a good man’s life?

“You know him?”

Ah. Of course. Using his name and rank sounded much too familiar, even if she could have guessed the information from context. She said, “We crossed paths. I agree – he’s wasted in the Watch.” She wondered, when she and Callista parted company, if the Captain had put up a fight for Corvo when he was accused of her murder.

 _"His grandfather came from Serkonos. They never let him forget it,"_ the Heart said sadly. He was right; his Serkonan heritage was part of why he and Corvo got on well, but it also meant that anything Curnow said in defence of the Royal Protector would sound as if he were a Serkonan sticking up for another Serkonan, an act that would likely have the reverse effect of his intention.

The Heart’s comments about Piero had intrigued her, and when he took a nap in the afternoon, she borrowed the memo cards from his workshop and played them in the audiograph player that Samuel had found in the river that morning, when Havelock had apparently flung it from his bedroom. Samuel had been obliging when she asked to use his new player, and then gone to do his regular maintenance on the _Amaranth_. Jessamine sat in Samuel’s makeshift shelter (uncomfortable though it was) and listened.

_“Does part of the soul live in the heart?”_

She took a sharp breath in.

_“If the heart keeps beating, does that mean the spirit is never released to oblivion? I can keep a heart beating forever with electricity, but what does that mean for any essence trapped within? It would be easier if I had created these processes in waking hours - I am uneasy pursuing avenues that emanate from my dreaming mind.”_

The player clicked off, and the Heart kept up its steady pumping. Was that what the coils of wire, the splints of wood like a miniature Outsider shrine were for? Did Piero slice the heart of a young boy to pieces and sew it back together with a motor inside, powered by a drop of whale oil?

_“I only wanted to see the Outsider one last time to thank him, for I would no longer live in fear. Now I am not alive – but I have not yet received the gift of death.”_

“How can I help you?” she asked, feeling her own heart clench at his words. “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

He said nothing. No further prompting yielded an answer – the moment of clarity and self-awareness seemed to be over, and when he lit up again, it was to lament the burning of the whales.

The next morning, she came down the stairs to the ground floor hearing Wallace berate Cecelia in the importance of learning to curtsey in the next few hours, as they were going to be in the presence of _royalty_. She would have to pull Cecelia aside later to correct Wallace (she suspected he was only nitpicking to feel superior and he knew if he tried anything of the sort with Lydia, she would slap him. Curtsies had been out of fashion since well before the Kaldwins) but for now she was suddenly alert, and as she entered the bar she was waved over immediately by Martin.

 _He’s found Emily_.

“The Golden Cat, of all places,” he said, leaning on one of the table booths with a building layout in front of him. It took Jessamine a moment to understand what he meant – that that was where she was being hidden. But the Golden Cat was a brothel on the other side of the Distillery District – she had _passed by it_ on her way to Holger Square two days ago. Emily had been hidden directly under her nose from the moment she woke up.

“ _Why?_ ” was the first word out of her mouth. The thought of her being kept in close proximity to all sorts of unsavoury aristocrats paying for their dark desires fulfilled… she had to fight a shudder.

Martin looked grave, not meeting her eyes, and wore an expression that told her there were all too many reasons, each of them more unpleasant than the last. “Well, it’s a public place, and Campbell and others could frequent without arousing suspicion. They won’t be immediately implicated if Emily is discovered, and could easily sell a story that further discredits Corvo in place of the truth. It’s not terribly surprising for young girls to be secretly held in places of the sort, and nobody who works there will say anything about it for fear of losing the only income and shelter they have access to. The old Spymaster didn’t get to be a tyrant by being stupid.”

She felt sick. Every word he said made her more revolted at the notion that she had ever trusted Hiram to act in the best interests of the people. “How quickly can we get her out?”

“Today. Before the busy hours of the Cat begin this evening, you’re going to break in and get her out. You also,” he said, “get the illustrious honour of dispatching Treavor Pendleton’s older brothers.”

In addition to keeping an eye on Emily at the Cat, the Pendleton twins’ Parliamentary vote was needed to sway the court on certain issues that the Loyalists had deemed a priority. She pried as much as she could, but Havelock and Pendleton seemed reluctant to give details of their policy decisions to her, and although it frustrated her, she could hardly blame them. She knew the intricacies of the court quite well, and one vote – soon to be Treavor’s – would go a long way. If he could convince the other representatives that he was “the good Pendleton” and detested his brothers, he would immediately gain allyship from courtiers whose votes were normally cast in contradiction to whatever the twins decided. If he could equally balance that with his well-respected late father’s repute for good decision-making, Pendleton could immediately start making significant changes in Dunwall. Jessamine could only hope that they would be changes for the better.

Pendleton acted conflicted for the sake of appearances, saying that he had done his best to warn them that their actions would not serve them well in the long-term. And perhaps he did feel some level of guilt for discarding the traditional noble family value of defending your kin first and everything else second. However, it was largely for show, as it was well-known that Treavor could not stand his brothers, and his brothers could not stand him. He said, almost convincingly, that one’s duty to the crown (in this case, Princess Emily) almost always outweighs the duty to one’s family.

“You know,” said Havelock, in a tone that Jessamine was quickly learning to dislike, “it might be significantly easier for a lady such as yourself to get in and out of the Golden Cat undetected. With a few adjustments, I’m sure no one would even notice the mask.”

“I’ll stop you there,” she said, reigning in her tone as much as she could, trying to sound neutral when she wanted to blaze at him. “I think I know how to do my job, sir.”

“Oh… of course,” he acquiesced.

She put on her masks as she walked down the steps to the waterline, where Samuel was already sitting in the _Amaranth_. “Ready to go, ma’am?”

“Yes, Samuel. Let’s get Emily out of that awful place at once.”

There was a new watchtower on Endoria Street. She didn’t want to risk the rooftops, so she dipped into the underpass and tried to avoid the plagued people who stumbled around below Clavering Boulevard. She was staying close to the walls, and was trying not to let her steps echo. On Gaff Street, she heard a pair of Watch officers demand to know where a civilian was going in the middle of quarantine.

The Heart trembled. _“When the factory closed, recruiters came knocking. They wore clean uniforms and convincing smiles. Said they, ‘Provide for your family.’_

_“’Get a weekly ration of elixir,’_

_“’Make a good wage,’_

_“’Sleep in a warm bed.’”_

The boy’s voice overlapped with itself as he imitated the guards, creating a kind of echo that Jessamine could feel behind her eyes with its intensity.

(“No, please! It’s for my baby, he needs it!”)

(“It’s us that needs it! If the City Watch gets sick, how are we supposed to _protect_ you?”)

_“’Camaraderie,’_

_“’Duty,’_

_“’Community,’”_ he sneered. _“Now they spit and piss in the streets, and beat down the people they used to share the muck with. Just like all the other brutes, scrambling on top of each other to pull themselves out of the dirt. They are worse than the vermin they squash under their feet._

_“ **Squash them.**_

_“ **Kill them.**_

_“ **Make the streets run red with their guilt.** ”_

She was taken aback by his hatred and malice. She knew he’d been wronged. She knew he was angry. And in truth, she almost regretted it when she told him, “No,” and she felt him recoil. But if she started enacting personal judgement on her citizens, where did that end? She was not naïve. If she slaughtered every person who’d committed a wrongful act in a time of hardship, Dunwall would be populated only by corpses. Killing one corrupt Watch officer would not turn the tide of her city’s fate. All the same, she could not stand by and watch this unfold and live with herself afterwards.

She whipped out a knife from her sleeve and it caught the first officer in the hand, making him yell and drop his sword. The other immediately turned on her, but she commanded, “Get your hands off her,” and he faltered.

“Stay out of this, bitch,” spat the one she had injured. He was clutching the wound, blood dripping off his fingers, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from raising his gun.

His companion put two fingers against his raising gun arm and told him, “Hold it.” He tipped his chin at Jessamine. “You one of Lizzy’s?”

Lizzy Stride. Leader of the Dead Eels gang and owner of a strong Lower Dunwall accent. Jessamine didn’t trust herself to try and emulate it. “Who wants to know?”

“Your loyal customers,” he said flatly.

She raised an eyebrow and nodded at the barrel of the gun that was still pointed in her direction. “Loyal?”

After a pointed look from his colleague, he lowered the gun.

“Yes, I’m with Lizzy. And I got things to do, if you don’t mind not shooting my people.”

“Sorry. Didn’t know she was with you. We’ll be going.” He tapped the other officer and jerked his head in the direction of Clavering Boulevard. The one she had struck with her knife teased the blade out and tossed it at her feet, muttering indistinct curses. When they were what most people would consider out of earshot, the first one said, “We don’t mess with the Eels.”

As she crouched to pick up the knife and wipe it on the handkerchief she had adopted for this purpose, she heard the other argue, “We have orders to keep the gangs off the streets.”

“You always do what you’re told?”

“They’re just scum. Who cares?”

“Idiot. Where do you think our whiskey and cigars come from?”

She followed after them by using the Mark to jump up onto the vents and ledges above their heads. She wanted to hear this additional piece in the puzzle that was Dunwall’s factions.

“Don’t Slackjaw own the Dunwall Distillery?”

“Dunwall whiskey is hogwash. The good whiskey comes from Alba, and the good tobacco comes from Cullero.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then abruptly, “Hey, I thought ‘whiskey and cigars’ was code for a shag?”

“You think half the Watch is sleeping with each other, you dimwit?”

“That explains why you’re so miserable all the time. I’ll give you a _cigar_ around the back of the barracks if you—”

Jessamine heard a thump as he was punched in the shoulder, and then the jokester’s laughter. “Shut up,” the other one said. “You want the Overseers to string you up? Half a mind to go report you myself just to get out of another patrol with you.”

The Heart led her to ever-more bonecharms. There were charm hooks sewn into the waistband of her trousers, no doubt a common quirk of Granny Rags’ clothing. She was starting to get tuned into them, she thought – not only was she guided by the pulse of the Heart, she could hear them singing, calling out to her. When she focused, she could see through walls and chests and bodies to the swirling particles of Void that gathered in arcane places. Sometimes she could see the stuff clinging to people, trailing after them as they made their way through the world. She wondered if they knew, if they practiced the black arts with intent, or if the Void just took a liking to certain people.

 _“Do the whalers know what they bring home?”_ the Heart said. _“Their own doom keeps the oil lamps burning.”_

Jessamine had to assume that Bernhard Walk was looking worse for wear, although she had never visited the street before, not even passing through in a railcar. She guessed that the hotel, the barbershop, and the beauty parlour were usually open for business and profiting off the endless hours of the Golden Cat bathhouse – if it _could_ be called a bathhouse, and from her understanding of the building’s layout, she began to doubt it. There was a kind of bath downstairs, with the steam rooms. Other than that, it was just beds, and the occasional… specialist contraption.

She could have asked the Heart for its insight, but in truth, she didn’t want to know. There were things she could do something about in her disempowered state, and this place, at large, was not one of them. She was sure there were enough secrets and shames hidden in these walls to fill every book in Dunwall Tower’s library.

It was not hard to discover where the Lords Pendleton were spending their time. Jessamine overheard one of the courtesans complaining in a hushed tone of how many hours they were booking into rooms for, making some of the other regulars unhappy when they couldn’t get into their favourite spot. Lord Morgan had been taking up the Steam Room for hours.

Her fellow courtesan huffed and said that she was almost tempted to break the pressure valve again just to get him to clear out. She, similarly, had asked Lord Shaw politely if he would like to take his cigar into the Smoking Room, which was the only place patrons were technically _allowed_ to smoke, and he had scoffed that he would rather know a pig carnally than share a room of the Golden Cat with a Pendleton. At least, Jessamine thought, it wouldn’t be too hard to get Custis alone.

“Morgan’ll be in there all night,” one of the Watchmen in the Steam Room said, as she crept down the stairs. She looked, and could see the Void-stuff dancing around four figures on this level. Two guards, and then Morgan and the lady unfortunate enough to be tending to him. There was a porthole in the wall, and chancing a look through it gave her a view of the two guards. The one who had spoken had his legs kicked up, picking at his nails.

“More coin for us,” grunted the other. “Though we’d make even more if they didn’t blow it on prostitutes.”

“My cousin’s a foreman at their mine. He says the slaves have dug half a mile down. So deep they’re dying by the dozen from collapse or fumes, but the silver’s almost gone.”

Jessamine didn’t hear the conclusion of the conversation, because she was seeing red. To hear that there were not only people in her Parliament but people calling themselves _Loyalists_ who profited from slavery… She was sure there were all sorts of legal loopholes to do with the locations of the mines and the lodging of the people and the sources of the people and what actually counted as a “person” to begin with. Right now she didn’t care.

The choke-holds she used to incapacitate the guards were more forceful and fast than she had thought she was capable of. She wasn’t sure whether to attribute the strength to her bone charms or her rage, but it worked just as well. She slotted the faulty crank wheel onto the vent for the steam room and turned it. Not all the way, not as to raise the steam too quickly.

She opened the door to the room where Morgan Pendleton sat having his hand massaged and rattling off matters of policy in Parliament. Sounds of protests met her. “Excuse me!” the courtesan said – Loulia, the Heart whispered. She sent the coin to her sister in Draper’s Ward.

Although Morgan had seemed just as annoyed as her initially, he was now wearing a grin that turned her stomach. “Well, another pretty face for the party,” he said. He flourished his right hand, inviting her to massage it as Loulia had been with the other one. She looked to Loulia and said forcefully, “Get out.” The blade of her sword whipped out, and she gasped and fled from the room with no objections. Pendleton lurched for the door, but she stopped him with the point of her sword to his throat.

Calmly, without taking her sword off him and only letting her eyes move when they had to, she kicked the door shut, took the key from the wall, and locked it.

Pendleton was leaning back as far as he could. He sounded utterly calm when he said, “Yes?”

She flexed her fingers around the hilt of the sword and said, “Where’s Emily?”

“Who?”

Before the blade was even fully back in its handle, the fingers of Jessamine’s left hand were clamped around Pendleton’s throat. The right hand joined them shortly. He made a strangled retching sound, like a cat coughing up a furball. “You don’t have time to play games,” she informed him, and let the whistling of the pipes be her explanation. He was already beginning to sweat, his skin turning red.

“You’ll die too,” he said.

“Don’t sound so sure,” she advised. “Tell me where Emily is, and I’ll turn off the pipes. It’s not too late, Morgan.”

“Upstairs,” he choked. “They keep her in the dormitories.”

Jessamine looked. She turned her head and peered right through the walls, hearing the pulse of a bone charm, the wail of a rune, seeing a haze of Voidliness around each, and then… some indistinct shape, shifting and whining with whalesong. Emily. She had more Void around her than any other person she’d seen yet.

“What did you do to her?” she snarled, facing Pendleton again, but the reinvigorated pressure on his throat was making his eyes bulge, and then they rolled back and he flopped like a ragdoll. She flinched as something snapped, bringing her hand back to herself and flexing it, letting him slump to the floor. Other than his lolling head, he was unnaturally still.

“Shit,” she breathed.


	5. A Fractured Inheritance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brothers part ways, and mother and daughter are reunited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: death, references to child death

The Heart informed her, as she climbed the levels of the building as silently and stealthily as she could, that although the Golden Cat had been in business long before Prudence became the Madame, the curtains had been her idea. The extravagant drapes were discordant against the patterned wallpaper. Paired with the revarnished, ornate furniture decorated with flaking gold leaf, it made the establishment look tacky, in Jessamine’s opinion. If she hadn’t been visiting for the sole purpose of rescuing Emily and assassinating two of the brothel’s patrons, she might have stopped to critique it further.

She supposed that was what she was now. An assassin. She had more or less signed up for the part, though it was only offered to her based on the assumption that she had prior experience in the area. She could have kidded herself that stealing into the Abbey and branding Campbell didn’t count as assassin’s work, but now she was killing Pendletons.

She wondered, grimly, if she wasn’t taking the Heart’s advice after all.

There was one window into the Smoking Room, and it was shut. Due to the nature of the room, she couldn’t see a great deal behind the glass. Her Void-gaze suggested two silhouettes, but there were some people that didn’t have much of the Void clinging to them. She couldn’t be sure.

_"Pendleton ships come back from the Pandyssian continent crowded with poor frightened captives."_

Jessamine struck her hand against the window pane with the Mark glowing through her glove, and it shattered into a flurry of wood and glass. She heard a scream as she vaulted into the room, but at the blast of air, enough of the smoke cleared for a moment to reveal Custis Pendleton with a gaping mouth and wide eyes. He was an easy target, and her knife lodged itself in his left eye before his face could change. The smoke was disturbed again when he hit the ground, and Jessamine had just yanked the blade back out of his brain when she heard a whimper.

Beatrice had backed against the wall, trying to look as small as possible. She had a scarf around her neck hiding the bruises. She whispered, “You.”

_I do hope we stop meeting like this_ , she meant to say, because anything would be better than his unbearable tension, but she had broken eye contact and leapt back out of the window with Custis’s collar in her fist by the time she thought of it. She had flinched from the fear in Beatrice’s eyes. Men like Morgan and Custis Pendleton deserved to be scared of her. But her subjects, the people she was meant to protect…

She dropped Pendleton’s body into the river from the height of the Smoking Room balcony and skirted the outside of the building, ignoring the confused yells of the guards that were starting to rise. With the commotion confined to the business wing of the Golden Cat, she met no resistance in the dormitories.

Jessamine took the eyepiece from her face and pocketed it. She removed the masks, and took a deep breath. The dormitories of the Golden Cat smelled faintly of bleach. She held her head high and opened the door.

She was sitting with her knees propped up, her face hidden behind her arms, in the same white summer coat that she had been wearing the last time they saw each other. It was more crumpled, and the sleeves didn’t quite cover her wrists. Jessamine said, “Emily,” and she almost choked on it. It was almost quiet enough that she thought she wouldn’t hear her, but her daughter looked up. She frowned. She got to her feet.

She said, “Mother, is that you?”

And then there were no more frowns, because mother and daughter collided in a flurry of hugs and kisses and tears. Jessamine planted kisses all around Emily’s face, stroking her hair with one hand and clutching her tightly around the middle with the other. It wasn’t long before she tasted tears, and which of them they came from first, she couldn’t say.

“Oh, my beautiful daughter,” she said, even despite the shaggy ends of her hair coming down to her shoulders and the scuffs and dust on her jacket and the fact that she clearly hadn’t had a bath for about a week. The giggly smile she wore was beautiful. Her eyes, just like her father’s, were beautiful, even as they brimmed with tears.

“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed, dragging her sleeve roughly across her eyes. “I saw—At the gazebo…” She sniffed. “That all seems like a long time ago.”

“I’m sure it does,” Jessamine said softly, brushing Emily’s hair out of her face. “But I’m here now. We best leave, before unwanted attention finds us.”

“I know the way out. I almost got away twice,” she said proudly.

Jessamine smiled. “That’s my Emily. Let’s go.”

They grasped each other’s hands and ran down the stairs. “What’s that noise?” Emily asked, craning her neck as they went past the door that led to the foyer.

“Nothing that concerns us.”

“We need the Madame’s key. She keeps it on her ever since I stole it from her office.”

The last thing she wanted to do was go back upstairs and start hunting around for Madame Prudence. She could hear the foyer door open and a guardsman issuing orders to cover all the exits, so she summoned the Mark – maybe she could blast the door open like she had the window – and touched the handle. She heard a _thunk_ , the lock opening, and decided not to waste time worrying about the fact that it wasn’t strictly what she had meant to do.

They almost crashed directly into Granny Rags. She was poised with her fingers twitching about like feelers in the air, and although Jessamine had done nothing to identify herself, she said, “Oh! Hello, dear. It’s good to see you again.”

She clutched Emily’s hand tighter. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I’m just feeding the little birdies… Have you seen them?” she turned her ears from side to side. Then suddenly said, “No no, don’t dally. You’ve got what you came for.” She tilted her head to one side and mused, “My my, are those gentleman callers I hear on the stairs?”

“Emily,” Jessamine said, and when she opened her arms and stooped to pick her up, Emily looped her arms around Jessamine’s neck and shoulders without objection. She looked to Granny Rags warily. “Can you hold them back?”

“Well this is my home, I can’t have just anyone traipsing through,” she declared, the High Court accent so strong that it sounded like a caricature. The elongated O in ‘home’ made Emily giggle. This backstreet hovel didn’t look much like a home to her, nor did Jessamine think that it _was_ Rags’ home any more than the house on Endoria Street had been. “Go, shoo shoo,” she said, waving them down the alley towards the underpass.

There were weepers on the street, their attention drawn by the smack of her boots on the cobblestones, but Jessamine didn’t stop running. “Hold on tight, Emily,” she instructed, as they rapidly approached the dead end of the street, and she launched herself into the air as if the Mark had placed a spring on the sole of her shoe. Emily squealed – more out of delight than fear – and they touched down on the piping that hugged the walls of Bottle Street and its offshoots.

It was a narrow walkway they had to take, so Jessamine set Emily down. As much as she never wanted to let go of her again, she knew that Corvo’s lessons would serve her better here.

Emily jumped down into the slightly muddy Bloodox Way, and began to walk towards Bottle Street. Jessamine took her hand, restraining a habitual sigh – the ceaseless _wandering_ – and gave the bewildered Griff a gracious nod as she passed.

“Was that lady a witch?”

“Yes, and she’s very dangerous,” she answered, leaving no room for her daughter to ask if they could go back and ask Granny Rags all sorts of questions about witchcraft and pirates and far-off places. “If you ever see her again, you’re not to go near her, alright?”

She pouted a little and scuffed her shoes on the cobbles. When they passed under the surviving arch of Clavering Bridge, Emily said, “Mother, I’m cold.”

They had slipped from the end of High Cold and into Ice while Martin was decoding the journal, and Emily was in her summer clothes. “Yes. Of course you are.” She shed her jacket and opened it for Emily. She looked a little like she was drowning in it, and she had to tuck the tails into her waistband to stop them from trailing in the slush. The sleeves had to be rolled up a great deal so that they didn’t cover her fingers. “Very dashing,” Jessamine said, tapping a finger to Emily’s nose, and she smiled at that.

“Where are we going? To meet Corvo?”

They were almost at the shore where Samuel had dropped her off, but Jessamine stopped in her tracks, and he might as well have been on the other bank of the Wrenhaven. She felt cemented to the ground, frozen in time. Cast adrift in a sea of grief that she didn’t want to recognise. _Corvo isn’t dead. Do not mourn him._

“No. Not yet, I…” She blinked back tears and turned to face Emily, who was looking up at her in confusion. She crouched down to put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and tried not to let her voice wobble. “Emily, darling, Corvo was accused of… the Empress’s murder after you disappeared.”

She balked. “But that’s horrible! Corvo wouldn’t do that. And you aren’t even dead.” It wasn’t that Jessamine thought Samuel might hear this, but the bluntness of Emily’s words that made her wince. “You have to tell them, you _have_ to get him out,” Emily insisted.

“I know,” she said, her heart breaking. “It’s… complicated. Come on. We can talk more about this later, when you’re not shivering to death.”

She wanted to talk about it _now_. But she could hardly say she wasn’t shivering, so she allowed herself to be led onwards.

“Oho,” Samuel said as they approached, smiling and opening his arms wide from where he sat in the _Amaranth_.

“Hello, Samuel,” Jessamine greeted.

He grinned, and then rubbed his chin in a theatrical kind of thoughtfulness. “Now, I’m to be waiting here for a princess by name of Emily. I don’t suppose either o’ you knows one of those.”

“ _I’m_ Emily,” she said, smiling.

Samuel exclaimed happily. He looked to Jessamine, gesturing to Emily, and said, “That’s the badger!” It made Emily giggle, and she was glad for it. “Step aboard, Your Highness. As you can see, there’s a royal welcome prepared.” He gave Emily his hand to lean on and nodded at the welcome mat on the floor of the _Amaranth_ that he had painted the word onto.

“Your boat hasn’t got a wheel,” she observed, as Jessamine climbed into the back seat. “How do you steer?”

“Aha, I’ll show you,” he said. He started the engine, narrating his actions and teaching her the names for all the different pieces of the boat. Jessamine rested her chin on her hands and watched as Emily was enraptured by the simple mechanics of the skiff. She asked if she could try the tiller, and Samuel said maybe later – there were people waiting for them back at the Hound Pits.

“Is it nice there?” she asked.

“Well, it’s nicer than where we just left,” he said kindly. The pub was perhaps not the pristine safe haven that Emily had in mind, but it served its purpose. Soon they would be back in the Tower, where they belonged. “Are you cold there, Your Ladyship?” She was still shivering, and it didn’t help that they were on the water, with nothing to buffer the wind. Samuel was already taking off his scarf and asking, “May I?”

She nodded, and let him wrap the scarf around her neck. “Thank you,” she said, drawing the coat closer around her.

Of course, Emily got to questioning Samuel about his history with sailing. Had he ever seen any whales? Oh yes, lots. And witches? No, never any witches that he knew of (though he gave Jessamine a wink when he said it). What about sea monsters? Oh, well, when he was a very young man out at sea there were tales of becalmed ships and beautiful, monstrous creatures who would rise out of their own reflections to drag sailors to their deaths beneath the water. Some of the other seamen would tell stories to the new marines, to scare them. Then one day, the wind stopped blowing, and they were miles and miles from anywhere, not a lick of dry land in sight. And there was this midshipman, who’d scoffed at all the stories, and he said he could hear this singing. Beautiful, he said, the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard, and it was coming from underneath the water. He looked over the side of the ship, and though none of his crewmates could see anything, he seemed to be staring at something just below the surface. He shed his weapons and his coat, and dived right in before anyone could stop him. A couple others went right after him, trying to pull him back out, but…

“But what?” Emily pressed breathlessly.

Samuel shrugged. “They couldn’t find hide nor hair of the sailor. It was like he’d entered the water and disappeared into another world. The man who’d shared his cabin with the midshipman swore, on calm nights, he could hear the man shouting, ‘Come here, come here! I have something to show you!’ but he was never ever found.”

With any other child, Jessamine might have worried that Samuel was going to give them nightmares.

Callista, Lydia, and Wallace were waiting at the waterfront of the Hound Pits. As they disembarked and Callista began to introduce herself and the others, Jessamine thought that Wallace would have done better to educate Cecelia on forms of address, rather than curtseying. He was the only one of the three who addressed Emily by her _correct_ title – Her Royal Highness, Princess Emily. Of course Emily was content with being a Lady, regardless, and said she thought she would like it here.

As they went to tour their VIP around the Hound Pits, Emily turned to wave at Jessamine – no more than a polite courtesy to the woman who rescued her from her imprisonment, as far as the watching Admiral was concerned. She was awfully good at pretending not to know one parent as well as she did already, she supposed. Jessamine hadn’t had to communicate to her that she should be doing that. She must have figured it out from the lack of fanfare – even acknowledgement – when she had stepped ashore.

Havelock shook her hand and told her they had taken the most important step to reshaping the Empire, and she only half-listened. Once she was free of him (and Treavor, who didn’t seem to have anything actually important to tell her, but insisted on waxing poetic about the “loss” of his brothers for some minutes), she set out from the Hound Pits. Everyone else was restricted in their movements by the barricades on either end of Brass Street, at least partially relying on Samuel to ferry them around. But with the Mark’s help, the way she could jump and float light as a feather, she was free.

She climbed up to the highest point close to her, hanging onto the chimney of an abandoned tenement, and using her eyepiece to get the lay of the land. There were a few shopfronts, many of them with their windows smashed or goods water-damaged. And there were corpses. Unwrapped, rotting, abandoned in the middle of streets or curled in the corner of hovels. Even through her mask, the stench permeated.

_“I used to hear stories of better days, when the city was a peaceful place. But that’s all they’ve ever been – stories.”_

“The plague didn’t come so long ago as that,” Jessamine said. The boy was young, but he was about the same age as Emily. There had been other problems in his lifetime, she was sure – the collapse of Clavering Bridge, the financial decline of the promenade that was replaced by Drapers’ Ward – but…

_“They butchered the deep ones, breathing in the rich stink of their enchanted flesh.”_ He sounded angry. _“They never cared what curses they bring to the people below. It affects them not.”_

Somewhere close by, she could hear an ominous clanking sound. Dread settled in her gut as she hopped rooftops to find the source, and saw what she had feared: a stilt-walker, armed and armoured, far above the plagued streets. She had seen them in the Void, might even remember the vaguest concept being mentioned by Anton years before, but seeing the real thing inspired a sensation that she could only describe as a mixture of awe and horror.

She knew that there were members of the Loyalist conspiracy outside of the Hound Pits Pub. The men here were all of the exiles, the ones who had been run out of their former positions of influence – or at least their official titles, as Martin seemed to wield as much influence as ever, with Campbell’s black book at his disposal. It was a coalition primarily of those who suspected Burrows of foul play, and criticised his actions as Lord Regent. So she had read the paper that was under redrafting at the Hound Pits, concerning the “exquisite tallboy” and the atrocities committed by this elite City Watch taskforce in the name of the Empire. The letter was a suggestion of organised unrest, a rallying cry to those who might have sympathy for their cause. There was a real campaign going on behind the scenes, not merely a ragtag group of dissatisfied and deposed people of influence. She knew that there were people working on decommissioning the stilts, on holding the City Watch accountable.

She also knew that none of that was going to help any of the people in the street right now.

Jessamine leapt from her perch on the rooftop with her sword drawn, grabbed the tallboy by the harness, and plunged the blade between the plating into their heart. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she realised that she was going to plunge to the concrete along with the stilt-walker.

By the time she remembered she should let go of the harness if she wanted the Mark to slow her down, it was too late, and the explosion of the whale oil tanks on its back flung her clear. She felt herself rolling on the cobblestones. When she slowed to a halt, she decided to take a moment to catch her breath and stare up at the overcast sky. Also, she wasn’t sure she could have moved if she wanted to.

“Er… miss?”

She opened her eyes and blinked against the sky’s light. Some minutes had passed. There was someone standing over her, grubby and uncertain. “Yes?” she responded, pleasantly.

“Um… are you well?” he asked. He had a thick Lower Dunwall accent..

“I am quite well, thank you.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, and nodded, seeming not to know how to proceed with that answer. “Good. Are you going to stop lying in the street soon?”

“I imagine so. Is there an urgent reason I should move?” She thought she probably could, now, although the bruising was going to be unpleasant. She should put in more practice for these kinds of stunts, to avoid mishaps like this.

“Er. Well, the rats, miss. They’ll be about,” he gestured.

The thought of being eaten alive by vicious rats for no reason other than being quite comfortable lying on the ground was not a pleasant one. In the current circumstances, it would be a notably stupid way to die. “Ah, yes, the rats. I will be vacating quite presently.”

“Good-o,” he said. He looked down the street, frowned at her, and then turned around and began to walk towards one of the houses.

Jessamine propped herself up on her elbows. “Do you live here?”

He turned around, looking surprised at being addressed further. “What’s that?”

“I thought this district was evacuated. For the flooding. And the rats.”

He smiled as if this were a funny joke, but the light didn’t quite reach his eyes. “We ain’t got nowhere else to go, ma’am,” he said.

In the house he was bound for, she realised she could see faces in the windows. All around the street were twitching curtains, her subjects just out of sight. Cowering from the terrors that her administration were sending to their homes in the name of order. She searched the stilt-walker and found a piece of paper containing orders to “clear” the Old Port District. Maybe she could find a way to issue a report – that it was so structurally unsound that a tallboy had been crushed when their incendiary arrows weakened a building’s supports, and it was recommended that it be left alone until it was safe to traverse the streets on foot. She took the walker’s stilts and threw them into a building that had had its whole front face collapse, to sell the idea. She did contemplate the body and armour, but there were already rats scurrying out of hidey-holes to wriggle between the plates, and she thought it best to leave them to it.

From the ruined house, she saw a purple light coming from the back alley, and pursued it. The alley was closed over at the top, and the ever-burning lanterns showed the way to a shrine tucked into the alcove.

_“They reported it to the newspapers the next day. ‘BOY FOUND DEAD: Strange illness to blame?’ They couldn’t find a silvergraph or the boy’s name, so they had an artist sketch what she thought he might have looked like. Before the gaunt cheekbones, and the bloody eyes.”_

Jessamine looked around. The alcove was plastered in old, peeling posters and faded graffiti, and the shrine looked as jagged and precarious as all the others she’d seen. But the cobblestones looked brand new, and through her mask there was the faint scent of something… formaldehyde? It was as if somebody had ruthlessly scrubbed and fumigated the whole area. If that had happened when the boy – one of the first known plague victims, by the Heart’s description – had been found, she might have understood, but that had to be over a year and a half ago. And there wasn’t a rat dropping or a cobweb to be found.

She approached the shrine, felt the rune buzzing like a wasp trapped under a glass as she got closer. She didn’t touch it, but placed her hands on the table either side and said, “Are you there?”

The rune sang its lonely tune.

“I want to talk to you,” Jessamine said, more forcefully, and then the buzzing began to increase, until the whole shrine began to vibrate. She stepped back, and when it exploded into light and splinters, she shielded her face – but felt no impact. Just the sudden, strange echo of the Void in her ears, and a not-quite-weightlessness that she recognised from sleep.

The Outsider composed himself out of smoke and shards of black glass, and said, “I don’t answer everyone when they call, you know. You should count yourself lucky.”

“You don’t bring everyone back from the dead, either,” she said dryly. Then, to the matter at hand, “Why six months?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, why six months? Why not bring me back right away? If you want to help—” some expression or another ghosted across his face, “—why wait six months, when Hiram has already taken so much from the people of Dunwall?”

He began to pace, walking on some invisible road that she could not see. “The Abbey has a great many assumptions about the Void and myself that bring me a great deal of amusement – or perhaps they would, if they hadn’t been droning on about the same few lies for almost two millennia. But they are right about one thing; I am not all-powerful. I may give people abilities, or ideas, but I cannot force any of my chosen to do anything. It is _why_ I choose. Humans are capable of making so many choices that I am… incapable of anticipating.”

“The point being?”

“The point,” he said curtly, “my dear Empress… is that whatever my Mark may grant you, there are some things it can never protect you from. And some things I cannot forsee.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You didn’t know I would be gone for six months,” she stated.

“I did not.” He smiled, leaning in close from her right side where he had circled. “And isn’t that fascinating?"

She returned to reality with an unpleasant jolt, making an unladylike noise of frustration. She had had more questions for him, like the Void-stuff that gathered around people, particularly Emily. If her daughter was in danger, she deserved to know about it. They would not lose each other a second time. Before she turned to leave the alcove, her eye was caught by something tucked under the shrine, and some investigation revealed it as a brown drawstring bag. She was somewhat wary to open it, and was braced for it to be some monstrous giant rat who would try to eat her face, but instead found that it was full of clothes. Not many – maybe an outfit and a half, but there was a pair of sturdy corduroy trousers and a woollen sweater-vest that was a definite improvement on the linen summer jacket that Emily was stuck with at the moment.

Had these belonged to the nameless young boy whose death had made the paper?

_“I don’t mind,”_ whispered the Heart. _“She needs them more than I do.”_

When she returned to the pub, Jessamine found that the floor of the bar had been filled. Many of the tables that sat in the booths had been dragged out of their places and arranged end-to-end, almost like the banquet table at Dunwall Tower. It was not how the royal family usually dined, but they weren’t to know that – and regardless, it _was_ an occasion.

“Hana,” Lydia greeted, her hands full of wine glasses, “I don’t suppose you could help with the seating arrangements? The Admiral suddenly wanted this dinner thrown together in the Princess’s honour, and I’ve had no time to prepare. Normally I would know the attendees a little better. And I don’t want to offend our Empress-to-be.”

She bit back a comment about how Emily would most likely be delighted if all of her dinner guests did headstands instead of bowing and loosed all their wind at the dining table without excusing themselves. She was ten years old, and decorum was boring; that was her official stance. Instead, Jessamine dictated to Lydia the requirements of a royal dinner party. There was of course somebody who did this for her at the Tower, and she was ever-grateful to him for relieving her of the burden of choosing a conversational partner at formal dinners. But she had picked up a few things, like who was never seated next to who, and the meaning of sitting _beside_ the Empress versus sitting _across_ from her.

Pendleton was kept far away from Emily’s seat on account of the fact that he would be getting drunker for every second he spent at the table. Callista was kept at Emily’s side, much like Corvo would be to Jessamine, because she was charged with caring for Emily. Lydia was taken aback when she started proposing spots for the servants, but she decided to insist upon the point. In order to feel like a banquet, there had to be people filling the seats, even if they occasionally jumped up to attend the kitchen or serve and clear the dishes. Jessamine didn’t voice it, but she also thought that after so many months at the Golden Cat being kept away from everybody as much as Madame Prudence could manage, Emily would want the company.

Wallace, ever graceful in the presence of nobility, volunteered to stand in for Matthäus, the Royal Food Taster. Their surroundings hardly seemed fit for such rituals, but Jessamine thought it might also put Emily’s mind at ease. When he gave the go-ahead, everyone tucked in.

The meal – although the Hound Pits Pub’s bloodox stew was not quite the impressive feast that M. Gérard Boucher, the head chef at Dunwall Tower, might have whipped up – was one to remember. The atmosphere in the pub was celebratory and lively, with most of the people at the table at some point in the evening getting a toast dedicated to them by one of the others. Pendleton’s toast in Wallace’s name was perhaps the laziest, as it was nothing more than a, “Yes, and thank you to Wallace,” slurred at the end of Havelock words about Lydia for her hard work keeping the pub for them while they pulled off the coup of the century. Cecelia went unmentioned, and just when Jessamine was about to raise her own glass, she caught her eye and saw her shake her head just slightly.

When dinner was cleared away and everybody retired to their own chambers (or in Martin’s case, retired to Havelock’s chambers in order to start planning their next move), Jessamine found Cecelia and asked her to take the clothes she had found to Emily once she was out of the long, steamy, bubbly bath that she was immersed in. She asked her to convey her apologies at not finding the Princess anything that could be considered night-clothes.

“Thank you,” she said, and added before Cecelia could say that it was her job, “for everything you did tonight. Not everyone may see what it is you do for this organisation, but I do. I thought I better thank you privately if you weren’t going to accept it at the table.”

Her smile was shy and hinted that she didn’t feel she deserved it. “Thank you, ma’am.” She had flushed very red.

“Oh, and about what Wallace said this morning,” she continued, remembering that she had filed it away. “Don’t worry about knowing how to curtsey. Nobody has been expected or required to curtsey in a formal setting for decades. He was just picking on you because he could. And you’re right – she _is_ just a little girl. She doesn’t—I mean I _doubt_ she cares much how you address her anyway.”

“Oh,” she said, flushing a deeper shade of red. “Thank you.”

She seemed to have succeeded only in embarrassing Cecelia further, and decided to make her leave. It was only when she was on the stairs returning to her chambers that she remembered that Emily likely not had anything resembling night-clothes for six and a half months. Imagining the scandalised gasps of Peri and Sara at this fact almost succeeded in making the Hound Pits lodgings less depressing.

Emily said goodnight to her before she crossed the bridge to her own tower. It was perfectly restrained and composed, and she refrained from using any names in it, any personal touches at all. Clearly she wished to speak to her in private, but Callista was by her shoulder throughout.

Since she couldn’t do anything immediately to aid the structural integrity of the tower, which had been worrying her ever since Havelock told her that it would be Emily’s quarters at the Hound Pits, Jessamine trained through the night. She needed to get to better grips with her weapons before the men sent her on the next mission. When she went back to her chambers in the morning, she found her coat draped over the chair. Callista or Cecelia must have returned it during the night, or in the morning. Inside a buttonhole was a note rolled into a tube, and she unfurled it.

> _Hana,  
>  You are cordially invited to a game of hide and seek that Lady Emily Kaldwin will be hosting in the courtyard of the Hound Pits Pub at noon today._

It was sweet, but Jessamine saw it for what it was – an opportunity to escape her governess. This tactic had been successfully employed many times at Dunwall Tower. Emily was the first seeker, and found both of them relatively quickly. Callista was persuaded into playing one more time, where Jessamine was the seeker. When she found her couched in a corner of the attic (she judged that cheating at hide and seek with her Void gaze was reasonable if the game was in truth a ruse to distract Callista).

“ _Why_ can’t you just command them? I don’t understand,” Emily said, exasperated, as she tried to explain.

“Because no one can know I am alive,” she reiterated, and though Emily sighed, she knew she wouldn’t be flippant about the matter. “And while we’re here, my name is Hana. Not Mother, do you understand?”

“Yes, Hana,” she said, frowning at the floorboards. Then, “This is rotten. I can’t call you my mother _or_ Corvo my father.”

Jessamine thought she would allow her that one expression, this once. She didn’t need or deserve a lecture about the importance of discretion with regards to her parentage. “Well, think of all of your favourite storybooks,” she encouraged. “Isn’t the orphan always a dashing hero who builds a family around them on their magical adventure?”

Her daughter gave her a withering stare that was beyond her years. “This isn’t a storybook,” she said, at once sounding angry and sad.

She felt as if she’d been struck. There were no words of comfort she could summon, only a genuine, but wholly insufficient, “I’m sorry, Emily.”

“It’s okay,” she said, and she thought both of them could probably agree that it was not.


	6. The Philosophy of Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every day that Anton Sokolov is providing security devices for the Lord Regent, the streets become more treacherous and Dunwall Tower becomes more impenetrable. He also has information valuable to the Loyalists, so his safe delivery to the Hound Pits Pub, where he can be contained, is paramount.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mention of suicide

“Good morning, ma’am. Highness,” Samuel said cheerily when he startled Callista and delighted Emily by appearing quite unexpectedly at the river-facing window of the tower. “Hana asked for my help making your tower a little more homely, while you’re with us.”

“What exactly are you doing?” Callista asked.

He hoisted the homemade shutters they had assembled earlier that morning (well, Samuel had done most of it, Jessamine felt she had mostly got in the way). They were chiefly made out of stray planks and driftwood they had found around the Pits; hardly the warm heavy drapes that hung in the Tower’s bedrooms and kept out even the most blazing of summer sun when drawn, plus it was still winter and not likely to be light before mid-morning. That wasn’t the point, though. Perhaps Havelock thought it would be inspiring for Emily to be faced with the silhouette of Dunwall Tower every morning, but it was nothing more than a reminder of everything that had changed. The death of, if not her mother, then at least her innocence.

“And I’m patching the roof,” Jessamine said, making Callista jump again, as she was already perched in the half-collapsed floor above them and arranging the boards she had rescued from the unusable lower floors. “We can’t have our honoured guest being rained on.”

She had also enlisted Wallace’s help – turgid he may be, but he understood how to deal with important people, and he had been serving Pendleton in less than ideal conditions for some months. He was tasked with finding some kind of scarves or drape-adjacent items they could hang over the windows in addition to the new shutters, and ideally anything else that could make the room more colourful.

“How did you get up there?” Emily asked with a quizzical smile, as there were no surviving stairs for the tenement and no convenient iron bridge to cross on any other floor. Jessamine put a finger to her lips playfully, and she saw the exact moment Emily remembered that her mother had acquired magic powers.

She had been worried after their conversation in the attic, but Emily soon brightened. She was determined to quiz Jessamine on her abilities’ every facet. She was happy to answer her questions, when she could. Some of them were about such things as why the Outsider chose her, and if she could still die, and completely unrelated stories about witches that she’d read of somewhere or other. She could hardly be steered from the topic of magic. If Callista hadn’t been such a headstrong spirit herself, she might have gone the way of Ms. Underwood already. The old governess had been the fourth to follow Mrs. Baird’s act, an admittedly difficult feat, and had resigned within a week of having Emily as her charge.

Jessamine was not particularly good at fixing the ceiling. Samuel had instructed her with the basics when they made the shutter that morning, but she kept missing the nail, or hitting her fingers. The planks were not lined up as neatly as she wanted at the end of it (which was a lot later than she thought it would be; the work took a long time). But she was the only person who could get up to that level of the tower, so she had to accept it.

By late afternoon, they had Emily, Wallace, Callista, and Cecelia working on the interior décor of the tower, making colourful signs for the different “wings” of the room with the pencils Emily had stolen from the Golden Cat. There were throw blankets on the end of the beds, cushions arranged into a tasteful reading nook and – most importantly – people willing to listen to her talk about whales and pirate captains and princesses who rescued themselves from the dungeons of far-away castles.

Jessamine and Samuel worked on the tower’s integrity, which was a task that went on for the next full day. He paid her several compliments about her strength, and she tried not to flex the hand where the Mark was itching self-consciously. They managed to salvage some support beams from other collapsed buildings that they propped on either side of the tower’s load-bearing walls. It at least slightly eased her fear of the tower swaying in the breeze, which was a mental image she’d had foisted on her the first night Emily had been sleeping there.

“Emily seems to like you,” Havelock commented. When he perceived that she failed to see the point of the statement, he continued, “That’s good. It’s important that she feels safe here, among allies.”

Jessamine refrained from asking, _‘Is it?’_ It was her own trusting of her allies, feeling safe in Dunwall Tower, that had led to this mess. When ruling an empire, one shouldn’t be flippant about trusting anyone who has political agendas, either contrary or concealed. With the tirade of disasters going on in the Empire, trying to keep up with events when people seemed to be trying to keep her in the dark had worn her down. On one hand, it had been true that she didn’t have time to personally deal with every problem or even personally delegate, but after she uncovered Hiram’s “quarantine” proposal buried under a thousand other matters of bureaucracy, she hadn’t been able to trust that the right things were reaching her ears. He had been forced to come to her directly, and she had blockaded him… made herself an obstacle, thinking that he wouldn’t cut her down.

The weight of the world was too much for young Emily. Even with the best advisors around her, a ten-year-old on the throne did not have a good historical precedent. Emily didn’t have any siblings or cousins that might attempt to usurp her, but it might even have been easier if she did; it at least would suggest a direction that an attack could come from. Instead, she was surrounded by adults who all wanted her to trust them, and who were almost unilaterally untrustworthy.

Rather than any of that, Jessamine said, “I know this is grave business, but I hope Her Highness doesn’t lose all her chances to just be a child.”

He said, “Quite right,” and cleared his throat. She thought he had received the reminder – that Emily was a child, yes, but she was not in any way his _peer_. Addressing a member of the royal family by their given name without authorisation had been decreed an act of treason in ages past. It was hard for an Empress to make friends, but sometimes that was for good reason. Sometimes it was for keeping away people like the Admiral, who were all too likely to take advantage. After all, the Heart had told her that he tried to seize control of the military when she was murdered. It wasn’t an act of loyalism; it was opportunism.

When Jessamine entered the bar upon Martin’s invitation, he stood from his seat as a gentleman did for a lady before they both sat down in the booth again. After a sip from his drink he said, “So. One of the many secrets revealed by Campbell’s journal is that Anton Sokolov recently painted a portrait of the Lord Regent’s mistress. We want her name from Sokolov, so you’re going to have to head out to the north end of Kaldwin’s Bridge to bring him back here.”

A map of the city was laid out in front of her. The Hound Pits Pub wasn’t exactly a close neighbour to North End, and she raised an eyebrow. “All that for a name?”

“Mm,” Martin conceded with his expression that it was not the whole reason, through the mouthful of whiskey he had. “Obviously, Sokolov is a powerful player in this city. We think it would be best if he were removed from the Lord Regent’s employ – one way or the other. Personally, I’d love to get him rallying to our cause. However,” he lowered his voice and leaned over the table just slightly, “for the purposes of your business with Piero, I suggest you keep any such notions discreet.”

Jessamine agreed.

“Have you ever visited Kaldwin’s Bridge before tonight, Hana?” Samuel asked, as it came into view.

“I remember when it opened,” she said, which was true. She also remembered the numerous council meetings her father had attended with the engineers, manufacturers, joiners, and other tradespeople in order to convince the Parliament that the bridge was both possible and desirable. What better symbol of unity across the Empire than a bridge, replacing the meek and failing structure that had come before it? People believed that the bridge was named after Euhorn himself, but that wasn’t true. She distinctly remembered that it was named in remembrance of his father and brother, and in honour of his daughter – the Kaldwin name, the beginning of a new dynasty and a new age.

She wasn’t sure if it was apt or ironic that the bridge had become a well-known suicide spot.

She found a shrine on Drawbridge Way, along with a man who was delirious from plague or Void-fever or both. Without any prompt other than the pocketing of the rune that began the man’s chronicled descent, the Outsider began to speak. “Rivers change course over many lifetimes, and eventually all bridges tumble down,” he said. “A thousand years ago there was another city on this spot. The people carved the bones of whales into runes and inscribed them with my Mark. Children still find them washed up in the river-mud.”

She wondered if that was what this survivor was to him. A child, playing with forces he didn’t understand, letting the Void and his imagination carry him away.

“Anton Sokolov has made a great study of my runes, but he's not special like you are.” He said _special_ with a curl of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile. “He wasn't chosen and he doesn't wear my Mark, so he can't unlock their secrets. Sokolov believes there are specific words and acts that can compel me to appear before him. He searches old temples in Pandyssia and ruined subbasements in the Flooded District. He performs disgusting rituals beneath the old Abbey.” With an extra chill in his voice, he finished, “But if he really wants to meet me, he could start by being a bit more interesting.”

And with the understated flourish of a bored adolescent, the Outsider vanished again, without waiting for her to say a word.

Once she was across the drawbridge, Jessamine cut through some abandoned buildings. She found a page torn out of somebody’s diary and a book with a broken spine and a dog-eared page. The diary entry was about Overseers that had passed through on the way to the Royal Physician’s apartment on North End with a peculiar music box that seemed to quiet the songs of bone charms and runes. The flagged passage of the book was about the tunes of the Void and how the author – Overseer Steven Gainsford – believed that there was a scale of ancient, naturally-occurring music that could cancel out the Void’s own melodies.

It was dim in the apartment, but she didn’t want to take the book over to the window to read it better in case she was spotted, so she opened a lantern that she found beneath the desk and lit it with a wave of her Marked hand. To her surprise, it was a purple flame that sprang to life atop the black candle, and whalesong drifted through it. The text on the page didn’t become easier to read, but she saw a whole new set of writing. The studious scrawls of a witch. The notes didn’t make much sense to Jessamine, as they were fragments of thoughts that presumably only meant anything to a witch.

_Disrupt counter-melody_

_Tuning fork?_

_Change bone charm frequency?_

On another page, the witch had circled a paragraph in the invisible ink. A scrap of paper which had appeared to be a bookmark before was instead revealed to be a note which read:

> _So far Naria’s technique has only yielded how to make a likeness of a place to step into, rather than actually transporting the user from one location to another. Perhaps the Void needs to mediate? If I step into the Void through one painting and out through another, perhaps that is the key to success. Careful experimentation is required. If we can master this skill, the coven will reach heights of power unknown since the Great Burning._

The concept sounded very familiar – Jessamine realised it was almost identical to Piero’s idea of a ‘door to nowhere’ that Havelock had not seen fit to supply materials for. These notes, though, seemed less like a fanciful dream than Piero’s had, and suggested an organisation of witches far vaster than Jessamine had heard of operating in her lifetime. The return of deep veins of magic from before the modern calendar was a frightening concept. Those had been turbulent times, or at least, so scholars of the period speculated. There was very little remaining recorded history about the sorcerers of the old world. Perhaps in those days the Outsider had given his Mark to more than a handful of people in a century.

There was a double door bricked up at the other end of the apartment. It had seemed perfectly ordinary before, but there was something about it in the lantern-light… she took it closer, and brushstrokes appeared on it. There was a circular sigil painted in the middle, and over the top, a painting of a room in an old manor. It was falling to ruin and covered in plants. Jessamine tested a hand against the brick and felt it give way. Not wanting to trap herself in a witch’s painting of a derelict mansion, she withdrew it, and promptly snuffed out the lantern. She would put this aside for inquiry at a later date. For the moment, she already had enough to do without worrying about witches and doors to nowhere.

North End was in a dire state. A number of the houses had been burned down in what she could only suspect was an attempt to kill the plague. The bridge seemed liable to crumble into the Wrenhaven at any minute, leaving only the wrought iron drawbridge in the middle of the river. In one of the half-destroyed buildings, a wall of light was set up, with a number of people trapped behind it. She overheard a guard questioning the ethics of this practice to his superior, who shut him down immediately. The Heart’s previous observations that every formerly-good person who joined the Watch had the goodness ground out of them came to mind. More pressing, though, was what these people were being kept _for_ ; they were to be the subjects of the Royal Physician’s experiments.

“Did you hear what those guards were saying?”

“Keep your voice down!” hissed the other conscious captive. “I heard! But what am I supposed to do about it?”

Jessamine had an idea of what to do. There was a fog drifting in over the river, and she pulled it through the Mark, forcing a thick and heavy cloud into the street. She disengaged the whale oil tank from the wall of light. The ones who could run, ran, staying in the densest part of the fog until they vanished from even her view. The one who couldn’t – well, she had intended to carry him to the relative safety of one of the vacant apartments of North Bridge. But he was stiff with rigor mortis, and the Heart whispered that he was long gone. The guards had not noticed.

As Jessamine climbed to the rooftops once more, she debated whether or not she should be assuming the worst of Anton. It was possible that Hiram was insisting on the use of live subjects so that the plague for the cure could be found fast enough… he had a fascination with order and control that, when kept in check, made her offices very well organised in a physical and conceptual manner. He could be attempting to micromanage every detail of the Empire, in which case it would almost be a wonder that the city hadn’t been wiped off the map five months ago.

But in the combination greenhouse, observatory, and laboratory, her doubts were easily affirmed. She knew Anton as brash, witty, and fond of the stars. That was all still true, but the man in front of her with the shadows under his eyes and the sardonic remarks to his oblivious ‘patient’ was someone she didn’t recognise. Rude, cynical, irreverent, all these words she would have heard seven months ago and found justified. But _cruel_ … This man had held her newborn daughter and pronounced her a healthy girl with a smile on his face. She had been able to trust him, in the midst of chaos and intrigue, to tell her the truth.

_“Sokolov will do a great deal in the name of progress,”_ the Heart whispered in a way that told her she didn’t want to know the specifics. She had the urge once again to cover his eyes, hide him from the cruelties of the world. In truth he had likely seen more cruelties in his short life than she had in even this last month.

She stepped out of her hiding place and startled Anton at his audiograph player just as it stopped recording. “What? Who are you? How did you get in here?” After a moment, he let his eyebrows settle back into their usual place, furrowed over his eyes, and sighed. “I can’t say I’m surprised. I knew someone would come eventually. But you’re not what I expected.”

He put up his hands and stepped back, looking for something under his desk.

“Now, there’s no need for violence,” he said, although her weapons were not drawn. He put a bottle of whiskey and a pair of glasses onto the desk. “We could be great friends, you and I. Will you join me in a drink? Sit, and… talk a while. Come, we’ll discuss your future.” He started to pour the drinks and indicated a seat. She didn’t sit down, and his worry visibly increased. As did his attempts to mask it. “You are a person of intelligence, I can see. We can find a way to sort this out, hm? Yes?”

She said nothing. She wondered what he might offer her. She wondered what she might take, if there was anything in the Empire that could bridle her fury in this moment.

Her silence seemed to be discouraging him, and his face and frame seemed to be crumpling inward. When she stepped forward, he stepped back, hurrying to plead, “Before you do anything rash, I think we can come to an agreement. It doesn’t matter who sent you. Whatever they’re paying, I will double it. Triple it!”

She said nothing. He dropped to his knees, fists clasped together. “Is there nothing I can offer you? Money isn’t the only thing I have in abundance. Please… please, spare me, I’ll make you the most comfortable man in the Empire.”

So, this was the iron Tyvian will that he boasted so strongly. Jessamine reached for the masquerade mask and eyepiece, and said, “Okay, Anton, that’s quite enough of that, thank you.”

He gaped. It was quite a remarkable sight – Anton Sokolov, speechless. She almost had time to enjoy it before he sputtered, “By the Outsider.”

(It was not inappropriate, given the circumstances.)

“But how—” he closed his mouth from where it had been hanging open, and straightened his back. “I examined your body, you know. You were—well, Your Majesty, you’re certainly looking more _alive_. What _is_ this?” He had got to his feet, and looked like he was about to start circling her and taking notes.

Sokolov could be stubborn, but there was one sure way to win his cooperation, and it was with the promise of philosophical discovery. Knowing what she knew now about his obsession with the Outsider, she began to deglove her hand. He watched, enraptured, and gasped with reverence when she held out the Mark to him. He took her hand to examine it closely.

“Fascinating,” he said as his finger brushed over the dark lines of the Mark, and he glanced briefly up at her face to say, “Did you know you’re as cold as the dead, Jessamine?”

She withdrew her hand sharply, and he raised his slightly in surrender. The Heart shivered, but said nothing, and she looked to the cage in the corner of the room, where Anton’s test subject was despondent. Jessamine held out her hand for the key on his belt, and he hesitated a moment, but relented under her glare, and she opened the cage. The woman barely lifted her head.

“Don’t get too close,” Sokolov warned, and she ignored him, putting a soothing hand behind the woman’s shoulder and rubbing circles.

“Give her something for the pain,” she ordered softly, and this time there was no hesitation before he fetched a vial and needle.

The woman’s eyes blinked as she tried to pry them open, and Jessamine tilted her chin up so that she could see her, hopefully. “But the test results…” she tried to say, barely managing to contain a cough at the end.

“Shhh, it’s alright. The test is over. Just rest now.” The needle slipped back out of her arm, and her eyelids drooped. Jessamine laid her head down on the mattress gently as Sokolov retreated to sterilise the needle.

“A waste of good morphine,” he muttered, when she closed the door of the cage again. He was gathering papers at his desk, and his apathy made her blood boil.

“How dare you,” she snapped, and watched him flinch. Forget who he was talking to, did he? Just because she wasn’t sitting on a throne, didn’t mean she was going to let him treat her subjects like trash. “What you’ve been doing here, it’s inhumane!”

“The work I’m doing here is invaluable. I don’t know if you’ve noticed how bad it’s got out there since Burrows took power, but I’m curing the plague!”

“There’s not going to be anyone left to cure at the rate you’ve been going! Between the stilt walkers, the walls of light, and the arc pylons, it’s a wonder there’s anyone left in the city to experiment on. Or are you having those imported too?”

He actually looked offended. “They’re _volunteers_.”

“Don’t tell me a man with a mind like yours is so naïve as to think the people the City Watch round up for you are in any way _choosing_ this madness.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and held up a hand when he tried to speak again. This wasn’t the place for it, a house teeming with guardsmen and Overseers like termites. She could have it out with Anton later about the inflexibility of human rights. Right now they just needed to get out of here. “There’s a group of people trying to depose Hiram. I’m here to take you to them.”

“And who’s leading this little insurgency?”

It was hard to say, in truth. She suspected Havelock of promoting himself to leadership without consulting the Loyalists outside of the Hound Pits, or possibly those within it. Martin would never take a leadership position openly, but he would certainly take advantage of any puppetstrings that fell into his hands. Sokolov, however, didn’t need to know any of that just yet. She said, “Admiral Havelock and Lord Treavor Pendleton.”

He narrowed his eyes. “They have no idea who you are, do they?”

“As you said, I did die. It would be a little difficult to explain,” she said with some nonchalance, as if she hadn’t given the matter a great deal of thought, or it had simply failed to come up in conversation. “Let’s go, Anton.”

He raised his eyebrows again. “Are you going to allow me to pack, or am I expected to live like some kind of vagrant while in their employ?”

“To be clear, my instructions are to take you as a prisoner. They already have a philosopher in their employment.”

“Who?”

There was one other way to ensure Anton Sokolov’s cooperation. It was to offer the opportunity to continue a debate in which he believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was right. When Jessamine said Piero Joplin’s name, Sokolov went very quiet, and very still. He said, “Allow me a moment to gather my notes.”

They were back with Samuel in the _Amaranth_ within the hour.

On the return to the Hound Pits Pub, Havelock seemed discomfited to see Sokolov awake and in need of an introduction on the shore. After he was conducted into the pub, narrowly avoiding the beginning of one of the pub’s famed dogfights between Piero and Anton on the short walk in, Jessamine hung back with Martin and Samuel. It seemed, she discovered, that the Admiral had been rather looking forward to throwing Anton into the dog cage and demonstrating his unparalleled skills of interrogation. Just a few minutes ago he had been boasting that all he needed to break a man was a length of rope and a bucket of seawater. Jessamine didn’t much care for men who relished in the pain of other people – especially not while remembering the still life of Corvo she had caught in the Void, scarred and bloody behind the bars of Coldridge.

When they eventually did join the table in the bar, Havelock seemed to be attempting to lecture Anton on the grave mistake of siding with the Lord Regent. Anton, not to be lectured at, was attempting to lecture him right back with the philosophical study of warmaking and the importance of choosing the right time to strike. “Hana, here,” he gestured to her, “assured me that you had an _opportunity_ for me, not merely a slap on the wrist and lodging in this _fine_ establishment.”

Havelock looked like he was about to go and fetch a bucket of seawater, but Martin subtly reined him in.

And so began the negotiations. Anton was just like any great thinker – boost their ego enough and they would tell you whatever you liked, as long as they thought they were educating the ignorant in doing so, and proving their own intellectual authority. All the same, he was playing the reluctant co-operator, and demanded a price for his information. “If I am to betray my Empire, I should like to have something to show for it!” he declared.

“We’ve already discussed the terms,” Jessamine scowled at his theatrics.

He scoffed, “Mere trifles. What I need quite presently is a drink.” And she couldn’t very well refute him on the value of their trade when there was an Overseer sitting across from her.

“Well, we _are_ in a bar,” Martin said, gesturing around him. There were also empty tumblers in front of each of them; the discussions so far had taken several drinks to get through.

“Not just any drink, you imbecile,” he said. He was not quite drunk, yet, by Tyvian standards, but he was certainly on his way. She wondered how many drinks it would be before he started that fight with Piero. “I will take only the finest King Street Brandy for compensation. Yes,” he decided. “King Street Brandy, or the deal is off.”

The drink was doubly rare because not only was it blended with Pandyssian spices, the brewery that made it had shut down, and once production had stopped, the price for it, particularly on the black market, had instantly shot up. Piero claimed to find the drink vile, but he had a bottle stashed in his workshop. Jessamine wasn’t sure if he was lying, or had simply planned to taunt Anton with it for the duration of his visit. Perhaps he had had it for some years in anticipation of an opportunity like this one, as she couldn’t imagine the Admiral signing off on the purchase of any alcohol that he personally wasn’t allowed to drink. Somehow she thought that Piero waving a King Street Brandy bottle in front of Anton’s face might have yielded faster results than Havelock’s method of torture.

“It’s true Hiram commissioned a painting of his mistress from me, but I never saw her face. She was only ever referred to as Lady Boyle, and I painted her from behind. She has a rather striking silhouette, conveys a great deal of power with her shoulders. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

“Is that everything you _know_?” Martin pressed, catching the wording. “A bottle of the finest brandy in the Empire ought to be worth as much as that.”

He hummed, pointing a pensive finger at Martin while his hand stayed curled around his glass. “You’re clearly a man of taste, Overseer. Your former superior, Campbell, had a penchant for Gristol cider that I never understood.” He sighed, “The Boyles hold a masquerade every year, and they haven’t seen fit to cancel. The most exclusive guest list in the Isles, this year – on account of the fact that anybody with a hint of a whisper of a whiff of plague is immediately cut. The party takes place on the 28th.” He smiled joylessly behind his glass and said emphatically but without feeling, “I _do_ hope you can make it.”

Jessamine watched Emily’s tower until the light went out. All she could think about was when they used to travel. Before the plague, when Emily was a little girl, they would visit the other estates they had dotted around the Empire. Jessamine would meet with officials from each of the Isles in their own territory, and there would usually be at least one parade thrown in her honour, and Emily could never get to sleep. Corvo would have to sit by her bed for hours just to get her to keep her eyes closed, but he always soothed her nightmares when they arose. Sometimes he never got to bed himself, just nodded to sleep in an armchair, and would spend the next day refusing to complain of a sore neck.

Jessamine didn’t attempt to sleep any more. She practiced instead, combining her weapons with her powers. Pushing the limits of her abilities – how slowly she could make herself fall and for how long, how quickly she could leap from one rooftop to the next and how quietly. She timed how long she could maintain her Void-gaze – twenty seconds if her concentration was undivided – and how long the mist could hold before it dissipated too much to hide her. After setting up a series of targets for her to hit with her crossbow, she ran a time trial for herself.

On her third attempt, the bolt stuck into the last target, a hay bale, with a _thunk_ and she felt pride glow in her chest as she pulled it. A nearly flawless run – she still wasn’t quite a crack shot with the crossbow, and if she could make the landing on her vault a little smoother—

“Very impressive.”

She startled, gripping the bolt tighter and readying herself to use it as a knife if necessary. She considered stabbing Anton anyway once she realised it was him sitting in shadow, watching her. She raised a finger to her lips and indicated her head to Samuel’s shelter, from which his snores were emanating.

“These powers of yours are remarkable,” he said in a low voice. “I have something of a commission for you. I suspect there are weepers below us. In the sewers. I believe the Admiral is going to ask you to kill them, but I humbly request that you bring them to me.”

She glared at him and hoped it pierced through the dark. “They’re people, Anton, not test subjects.”

“If you will not let me experiment on the healthy, you _must_ let me experiment on the sick. How else is the plague to be cured, Jessamine? Even just observing them would be a tremendous help. Please. Consider it.” He let that sit in the air for a moment longer, and then nodded and rose from where he was sitting. He meandered off towards the main building still nursing his brandy, humming a tune absent-mindedly as if he didn’t have a care in the world.


	7. The Royal Protector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Sokolov’s cooperation secured, the campaign is running almost smoothly. Until there’s a cruel reminder of all that’s still going on beyond the pub’s bounds.

The first dawn of her renewed life, she had spent nestled in a dim corner of an abandoned building, eavesdropping on Bottle Street gangsters. The second she had spent in the Void, being given the heart of a boy she’d never know the name of. She tried to remember the last dawn she had seen, from Dunwall Tower.

Ah. Her birthday. She had been unable to sleep. It was her first birthday in almost twenty years that Corvo hadn’t been there. On her nineteenth, they had snuck out of the Tower in the dark, a chill biting at their ears and noses, and Corvo had rowed them out onto the Wrenhaven. They’d watched the sky burn in increments of pink, yellow, and orange, mirrored against the water. Three years later, Emily was born, and being awake with the dawn quickly stopped being a novelty. Their daughter grew out of running around the palace until the sun came up – eventually.

The morning Corvo left for Dabovka, Emily had yawned a lot, and almost fallen asleep in his arms when he hugged her goodbye. Jessamine had longed to press a kiss to his cheek for good luck, but she was all too aware of the Spymaster’s prying eyes. Her security detail – Andrea, that morning – might politely look away, but Hiram would not.

Emily’s shoes clunked onto the corrugated metal bridge between her tower and Jessamine’s chambers, and she waved cheerily when she spotted her in the window. “I’ll wait with Hana while you have your bath,” she heard her say to Callista, who was close behind.

“I will send Cecelia up with your breakfast.”

Jessamine heard a _thunk_ as Emily hopped down from the windowsill. She said, “Good morning!” when she skipped through the door.

“Good morning, Your Royal Highness,” she said.

Emily waited patiently until she heard Callista reach the landing on the floor below before she added, “I made you something.” She extracted a folded piece of paper from inside her jacket and handed it to her. “Don’t worry,” she said, “Callista didn’t see.”

She sat down on the bed and unfolded it. It was a drawing – a drawing of her, all smiles and wavy black hair about her shoulders. It was helpfully labelled ‘Mummy’ at the top with a doodle of a swan in the corner. “Oh, Emily, that’s gorgeous,” she said. “Thank you.” It would be tremendously risky for her to leave it up here, she thought; a drawing by the Princess that resembled both the Empress and the Phantom of Dunwall (as she was called on the wanted posters) named Hana, all at once. She folded it back up and put it inside her coat, and Emily beamed.

She gasped at her gurgling stomach and smiled sheepishly.

“How unbecoming, My Lady,” Jessamine disparaged in a clear parody of one of Emily’s old governesses. She giggled. “To keep our minds off our stomachs, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been learning.”

Emily sighed, but she was used to the routine, so while Jessamine sat down, she began, “The principal islands of the Empire are Gristol, Serkonos, Tyvia, and Morley. Gristol is the biggest and the capital is here because we won the War of Four Crowns in 1625.”

She frowned. “No, ‘we’ didn’t, because the Royal Family does not represent Gristol. _We_ represent the Isles as a whole. And Gristol isn’t the biggest Isle, either.”

“Yes it is. I’ve seen the maps.”

She dismissed this with a wave of the hand. “Maps are drawn by people. People have political allegiances – even cartographers. Gristol is home to the capital, the physical centre of the Empire. If it’s drawn small, it might seem weak in comparison to the other Isles.”

“But Gristol has the biggest Navy in the whole Empire,” she protested.

“That’s true. Almost half of all men in Gristol spend some amount of time in service of the Navy. Gristol is surrounded by other islands on all sides, and all of its first defences naturally involve the sea.”

While she was talking, Emily had sat down with her legs folded and put her chin into her hands. “Callista says Las Puertas doesn’t count as a principal island. Is that true?”

She nodded and sat down across from her. “Las Puertas has never been a part of the Empire. Records suggest that Serkonan explorers hoped that the islands were the beginning of their conquest of Pandyssia, before the magnitude of it was understood. Las Puertas declared itself an independent state in the early eighteenth century, but trade routes were re-established in 1810—

“--and anyone travelling to the Continent passes through there if they know what’s good for them,” finished Emily eagerly, recalling the Las Puertas from the stories. There were legends of ships that bypassed the islands disappearing, or being ravaged by monsters of the deep. Emily had always liked stories about sea monsters and ghost ships.

“The War of Four Crowns was not straightforward,” Jessamine said. “The Emperor when the First Empire was formed was Finlay Morgengaard. Morgengaard is in Morley, remember? We’ve been there. And then?”

She was quiet for a moment, contemplative. “Olaskir is a Tyvian name, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The Abbey of the Everyman believed that the Morgengaard-Rhydderch line had been tainted by dark forces, and the Olaskirs took the throne – some accounts say by force, others not.” She had had a great deal of tutors but one, M. Havannah, instead of becoming frustrated by her incessant questions that he couldn’t answer, had sent her a constant supply of history books from the Greater Dunwall Library and (occasionally) the Daniila Library in Tyvia. She missed the days when she could immerse herself in her studies so completely – she would have been lucky in recent years to even make it through the Dunwall Courier without interruption.

“Your grandfather was the third cousin of Empress Larissa Olaskir, and the closest heir when all of the Olaskirs were killed in the Morley Insurrection. Your great-great-grandfather was a Gristish noble who married an Olaskir princess, and the Kaldwin name came from his family. The part of you that’s royal, Your Royal Highness, is Tyvian.”

“But what about the King of Gristol?” she asked. She was probably remembering the old nursery rhyme with that title. If you attended closely to the words, it was clear that he was a fictional character, but Emily had been quite little when she last heard it.

“There is no King of Gristol. The Wars of the Four Crowns were about each of the other Isles attempting to capture this one. There was no ruler here. Some parts were Morlean, some parts Tyvian, some parts Serkonan.” It was more complicated still, because before each of the principal islands were united, there were more regions. Serkonos had at least three distinct regions in the sixteenth century before the Queen of Brello and King of Ashos married their children together and united their kingdoms. The Morley kingdoms had been wholly at war with each other until the War of the Four Crowns forced them into an alliance. But Emily was already confused enough.

Cecelia arrived with the breakfast tray, and the conversation was put on hold as Emily beheld the miniature buffet that had been carted up the stairs. The scrambled eggs were lightly peppered, the bread was toasted to hide its staleness, and the rashers of bacon were streaky and cheap. After Jessamine thanked her, Cecelia did a self-conscious bob and said quietly, “I hope you enjoy your meal, ma’ams.”

Once they were alone again Emily, losing all semblance of manners by speaking with her mouth full, asked, “Is Corvo the Duke of somewhere? Because I’m the Duchess of Driscol, and I’m a Lady. And Corvo is a Lord.”

“You’re not a Lady, Emily, you’re the Crown Princess.”

“I don’t want to be a princess. I _want_ to be a pirate. Pirates can be ladies, but pirates _can’t_ be princesses.”

She sighed. This was an argument almost as old as Emily’s ability to communicate. Technically speaking, it wasn’t wrong for people to refer to Emily as a Lady, because officially she was a bastard. Jessamine had had to have a great number of arguments just to get her legally recognised as the heir to the throne, and then as soon as she could talk she’d told everyone to call her _Lady_ and not _Princess_ because didn’t everyone know she was going to be a pirate?

“Anyway, is he? A Duke?”

“No. A Duke has responsibilities to his province, and he is already the Lord Protector. I didn’t think he would want anything else to think about.” The thought of Corvo, who despised attending court almost as much as Jessamine despised having to resolve petty debates in the principalities, having some duchy to look after… He was a kind man who wanted the best for people. There weren’t a great deal of courtiers who thought that was necessary, and Corvo was bound to clash with such people.

“Do _I_ have responsibilities?” Emily asked.

“That was what our yearly pilgrimage to Driscol was for, remember? When you’re a bit older, you can plan the event yourself.”

“I’m going to have…” she considered. “The biggest banquet in the whole Empire. And everybody will have to dress as a pirate.”

 _Quite a bit older_.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Emily asked, when she had finished gulping down her glass of milk. She daintily dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, entirely missing the crummy smear of marmalade on her cheek.

Jessamine commandeered her napkin and held her chin to wipe it away herself. “I’ll take the tray downstairs,” she said. She took the exterior stairs that went down the side of the building from her floor, and crossed the courtyard to the kennels. It had been locked several nights ago when she tried the door, but a quick tap of the glowing Mark and it had swung open with ease.

Huddled in the corner of the cage were the two people she had found in the sewers beneath the pub, delirious with illness. She had done her best to make it comfortable with ratty old blankets that Lydia wouldn’t miss, but the only real comfort was that it was drier and warmer than the sewers. They didn’t stir as she placed the tray down on the floor and started to feed the remaining food through the gaps in the bars. She didn’t want the staff to miss a plate, so she had been leaving it on top of a book that she had found in the building.

She took the tray and empty plates to the kitchen behind the bar, and found Cecelia already doing the washing up. “Oh, thank you, ma’am,” she said. “You didn’t have to… thank you.”

“Do you need any help?” she offered. She wasn’t used to being able to see people perform these kinds of tasks. The Hound Pits Pub didn’t have discrete servants’ passages, and the floorboards were much too creaky, the walls much too thin, for anyone to forget that they weren’t alone. It made her aware of the space she was taking up in a way that she usually wasn’t.

“No, ma’am, that’s alright. I prefer to work on my own,” she said, and then as an afterthought, “Oh, thank you, though.”

Jessamine noticed a recent edition of the Dunwall Courier on the counter, the headline reading: GANG LEADER INCARCERATED IN COLDRIDGE PRISON

“That’s got to go up to Admiral Havelock’s room,” Cecelia said. “Martin brought it back for him.”

“I’ll take it up,” she volunteered, and was walking out of the bar with it before she could object. She skimmed the front page as she climbed the stairs – someone in the City Watch didn’t know where their good whiskey and cigars came from, it seemed. There was a teaser on the front for an article further in concerning the mysterious, possibly occult disappearance of the Brimsley family. An interview with Agatha Chesney, owner of the Chesney Clothing Company that was pushed out of Drapers Ward by Hat’s Fine Textiles. According to her, the onset of the plague meant people went for low cost over good quality. Never mind that Hat’s Fine Textiles was kept afloat by the Hatter Gang that was bleeding parts of Dunwall dry – that couldn’t have anything to do with it (said with as much sarcasm as Jessamine could inject into a mere thought).

She folded the paper back up and stuck a corner under Havelock’s door. As she turned to go back the way she had come, she saw Piero stooped in front of the bathroom door. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing for another moment before she returned to her original conclusion that he was keyhole-peeping. The Heart chimed in from her pocket.

_“He has done this more than once.”_

And there was that urge again, that impulse that the Heart fostered so lovingly, to do something petty or cruel or gruesome against the injustices of the world. When Piero saw her, she let him stumble over excuses, let him beg her not to tell Callista, and just when she was about to put her finger on the exact form of retribution she should give to him, the loudspeakers crackled.

“Attention, Dunwall citizens: The Lord Regent would like to cordially invite you to the public execution of the assassin Corvo Attano, murderer of our fair Empress, at eleven o’clock this morning at Grassmarket. We advise that you arrive early if you want a good view.”

Piero lost his relevance faster than a penny could drop, and she was running down the stairs and out the door. Samuel wasn’t in the _Amaranth_ , but he poked his head out of his shelter when he heard her coming. “Take me to Grassmarket,” she demanded, and he dipped his head in an obliging nod.

“Hana!” shouted Emily, running out into the courtyard. She stopped a few feet away, fists balled up, eyes wide, trying not to say all the things she had to say. “You have to bring him back,” she managed.

Jessamine took a knee and put a hand on her shoulder. “I will,” she promised. Realising that she couldn’t swear on her life, she said, “Upon my honour, Princess Emily, I will save Corvo and bring him back to you.”

She heard a befuddled Wallace say, “What’s going on?” having clearly been sent to investigate the commotion by Pendleton, but Jessamine didn’t waste any time descending to the shore and boarding the _Amaranth_. She glanced back briefly to see Emily standing at the top of the steps, and then the motor of the boat and the slosh of the waves overtook her senses, and she focused her thoughts as best she could.

Her mind frequently redirected itself to her own foolishness. She should have planned Corvo’s escape as soon as she had the Loyalists backing her. She should have insisted on it right away, getting him out of that dreadful place and back into her arms.

“Grassmarket’s only a few streets that way,” Samuel pointed when they pulled up against the side of a canal. As she disembarked, he said, “This is Dead Eels territory, but I reckon the City Watch has more sway in this part of town under the present circumstances.”

“Thank you, Samuel,” she said.

“Good luck, Majesty.”

She almost didn’t clock what he said. When it hit her, she stopped breathing, and turning her eyes to him seemed to take an eternity.

He knew what he had said. He could see that he was right by the look of horror on her face, but his expression didn’t change. “Oh, don’t worry, ma’am, your secret’s safe with me,” he promised. “I don’t think any of the others have figured it out. You might wanna watch that tone of yours, though – you slip right back into regality when you’re worried about your family.”

Clumsy. Of course she needed to watch her voice closer – hardly anyone had seen her real face up close, but plenty had heard her voice. She had made a speech over the loudspeaker just as the plague was starting to get bad, promising that the cure would be found soon and advising everyone to stay in their homes if they had symptoms. Hiram had objected. Of course he had objected. She should have seen it months before he tried to kill her…

It didn’t matter. It was done. What mattered now was keeping her voice from resembling the High Court of Dunwall, because she was going to save Corvo _and_ keep her identity hidden. An assassin with a noble’s voice just wasn’t going to cut it.

“Thank you, Samuel,” she repeated, more directly this time.

“Yup. I’ll be waiting on the river for you.”

There were figures skulking on the rooftops in Grassmarket. She couldn’t catch more than a flash of black before they vanished, each time she scanned the square, but they were definitely there. The people in the whaling garb that had restrained Corvo and stolen Emily all that time ago. They were watching – planning something, maybe. Or just here for the show, like everybody else.

The crowd was enormous. The flow of people streaming through the temporarily deactivated wall of light was relentless, and Jessamine was swept into the square without any say as to where she ended up. Her patience for politely squeezing through the crush was quickly depleted, and she elbowed her way forward without remorse. All of these people were here to watch her greatest love perish for a crime he didn’t commit. She didn’t care if she bruised a few of them. She grew slightly annoyed that the people in private carriages and leaning on windowsills in the apartments above shopfronts weren’t going to be subject to her elbows, in fact.

“Nothing’s been right in this city since Corvo killed the Empress,” remarked somebody in the crowd. Jessamine didn’t make more than a glance around to try and find the source, but she did stop elbowing strangers in the ribs for a moment.

Of course. These people weren’t just celebrating Corvo’s death for the hell of it. They were mourning her, too. Baying for justice in the wrong place on behalf of an Empress who was already finding her own. The pockets of noble delegations sitting in their private carriages above and away from the crush of common folk, though – them, she wouldn’t mind bruising.

“Excuse me,” she said, as she pushed through the next few feet. She was almost at the front now – a railing had been put up to stop the public from getting too close to the gallows.

Two carriages were arriving at the back of the marketplace, rolling through the wall of light on the western side of the square with rumbling wheels. They disappeared behind the stage, but guards started to move from shepherding near the entrance to stationed around the main event. Out from the by-street behind the stage marched a crop of Elite Guards that were rigid and practiced, aware of the eyes that had fallen on them, although the hubbub continued.

Behind them was the Royal Executioner, a man Jessamine had never before had the displeasure of laying eyes on. Emily had passed on stories that she had picked up from maids and Guardsmen, but she had always assumed there was a degree of exaggeration in her description. She had been wrong. Morris Sullivan was huge, with a contorted scowl fixed permanently on his face and a way of walking that suggested he’d had to be trained out of lumbering around on all fours. His pink meaty hands twitched as if eager to get on with it, wrap his fingers around the handle of an axe and just start swinging.

The Heart found him just as unnerving. _"Don’t get too close,"_ he warned. _“He delights in the suffering of other people.”_

The next person to emerge from behind the stage made her own heart stutter. Corvo was hooded and bound in chains, being flanked by two Guardsmen and dragging his feet along the cobblestones. There was something seriously wrong with his left leg in particular, and he could barely keep any weight on it at all. The plain shirt and trousers they’d dressed him in didn’t fit right, hanging off him as if he were a mannequin with sticks for limbs.

The volume of chatter had increased at his appearance, and then hushed, with an Elite Guard stepping up on stage to announce, “On this long-awaited day, we witness the death of Corvo Attano, the assassin who murdered our fair Empress seven months past.”

A cheer rose from the crowd, and Jessamine tried not to let hate fester for them again. She needed to focus on Corvo. He was prodded up the stairs blind, and then the hood was whipped off him and she saw him trying not to reel, eyes half-lidded to stop them smarting in the light. His face was stubbled and haggard, dark smears of exhaustion under his eyes. The eyes themselves were dull and vacant, not taking in the crowd he stood before. His hair was slick with sweat and grease and tangled into matted clumps.

 _“He never gave in,”_ whispered the Heart, as Jessamine’s own splintered under a hydraulic press of feeling. _“He never considered confessing. How could he ever say he hurt the Empress? He loved her.”_

She begged Corvo to see her. To cast his eyes over the crowd and let his gaze fall on her. She wanted him to know that he would be okay, she would save him, and that Emily was safe, and they would all be a family again soon. She begged him to look, but he didn’t. His eyes were down as he was lead to the block, seeing nothing and no one. He did not go for the guard’s weapon. He did not make a final attempt to flee. From the hushed silence in the crowd, they could all see he was already a dead man.

Jessamine had never attended a public execution before, but she had heard one. Grassmarket wasn’t far from the Tower, and if the wind was right, the sound of the jeering crowd carried all the way along the river. As a young teenager she had leaned against the battlements of Dunwall Tower and listened as somebody’s head came rolling off to uproarious applause.

This was different. Even the air was bating its breath.

“Corvo Attano, for the murder of our fair Empress, Her Imperial Majesty Jessamine Kaldwin, and the abduction of Lady Emily Kaldwin, Heir to the Throne, you have been found guilty for the crime of high treason. You are sentenced to death by beheading.”

Seven months of torture ordered by men who knew his innocence, seven months of believing his love dead and his daughter defenceless. Seven months. She owed Morris Sullivan seven months of excruciating pain.

She put away the eyepiece and fitted the visard mask onto her face under the filter mask. It was time to repay him.

Jessamine thrust her Marked hand towards Corvo, and a stream of mist howling like the wind of the Void was blasted at the stage, obscuring him from view. The executioner swung his axe down with an enraged yell, and the movement cleared some of the mist, but the sharp edge reverberated against something cold and bounced back. The mist had concentrated and hardened around the point of impact, and continued to shimmer around Corvo like a membrane.

The crowd was screaming, nobles with delicate constitutions fainting, and guards were rushing towards her, but she was already moving, jumping up on the barrier and springing off it onto the stage, her blade flipping out of its handle while she was in the air. The next swing of Sullivan’s axe was aimed at her, and if she hadn’t parried it with her sword, it would have cleft her in twain. She was between the executioner and Corvo, and she reached back with her left hand to touch his shoulder, passing effortlessly through the mist. The locks on his chains clanked open.

The one-handed sword wasn’t strong enough to keep the full force of the executioner’s next swing in place, so she gripped the handle tight with both hands. Fighting two-handed was going to be harder – her fencing training almost useless, and she was going to struggle to utilise the Mark’s advantage with this stance. On the bright side, Sullivan didn’t seem like a particularly adept swordsman either, when it came to fighting rather than just lopping bits off people.

Any optimistic feeling Jessamine had about her chances vanished when he reached out his free hand and pulled it back to his chest, and she felt an incredible pressure yank her closer to him. She tried to scramble backwards, but she couldn’t gain any traction on the ground, and all she could do was raise her sword to block his attack. The axe came down and it glanced off the blade, but there was no time to try and control its direction, and it hit her shoulder.

As soon as the edge of the axe touched her skin, time slowed to the rate of a nightmare. She couldn’t move, couldn’t react except in excruciating slow motion, but she could feel every moment of the cut. Every capillary sliced open was agony, and she couldn’t look anywhere but Sullivan’s sneering face, couldn’t smell anything but his putrid breath, and it seemed like she might be trapped in that state for eternity.

And then the metal was clean through her skin and time was right again. Her breathing was short and moving her sword caused a shot of pain to go through her shoulder. She felt suddenly tired, like the vitality had drained right out of her with that one cut, and she knew she had to avoid getting hit any more. Backing up would just get her pulled in again, so she needed to focus on defence. Summoning more mist would tire her too much and only buy her a little time, and she didn’t think she was quick enough to draw a new weapon, so she was going to have to rely on her sword to defend her.

Her current opponent also wasn’t her only problem. Grassmarket was swarming with guards, the lower ranks were concentrating on herding the hysterical spectators back into their carriages and out of the way, while the Elites were trying to find a position they could hurt her from. As it was, Sullivan stopped them from having a clear shot, but she wasn’t sure how much longer that would last, or how much longer they would care. She hoped, with as much of her concentration that she could spare, that the common people fleeing from the square didn’t manage to crush anybody in their stampede.

Jessamine heard a double rap of knuckles on wood and saw Corvo hunched behind the execution block, eyes alert and serious. It made her heart soar to see him coming back to himself, but there was no time – she turned her attention back to her sword just in time to swing it up and stop Sullivan from splitting her head right between the eyes.

Her belt became lighter as Corvo lifted her pistol and its ammunition from its holster. With a rally of gunshots going on around her, she stayed light on her feet, alternating between dodging and blocking the executioner’s blows. Even bolstered by Corvo’s cooperation, she was starting to flag, and Sullivan didn’t seem tired in the slightest. Even the one hit she had managed to land while he regained his balance didn’t draw blood – his skin was tougher than mail.

“Dammit—Someone get around him!” cried one of the guards, as more and more fell to Corvo’s sharp aim.

She narrowly avoided getting a blow to the side of the head that her sword was too slow to parry. That axe – that was what he was going to kill Corvo with, she realised. That monstrous weapon, dripping with black magic, that made its victim live every increment of its cut as it came down.

She felt her anger rise like a tidal wave, and when he raised his arm to strike again, the Mark on the back of her hand burned. She dropped her sword hand and raised the Marked, and turned the executioner’s malicious momentum back on him with a thrust of her palm. The axehead ricocheted off the wall of power it had come up against, and swung right back around to its wielder. It lodged itself deep in his head before he could scream, but long after he wanted to, feeling every millimetre of his brain being cleft through.

“Time to move,” she said. Satisfaction may have been burning through her chest, but there were still Elites dotted around the square, and it wouldn’t be long before all the civilians were out and they could turn their full attention to containing the two of them. To Corvo, she said, “Can you get to the carriage?”

He looked back to the tracks from behind his cover, evaluating each move he’d have to make to get there, and then nodded. Jessamine unholstered her crossbow and covered him while he hobbled to the back of the stage and off the edge, ducked low. He signalled her with a sharp whistle when he reached the carriage, and she abandoned her post, leaping off the decking and hitting the ground running. Corvo fended off a lower guard with his pistol while she ran, and didn’t waste any time climbing into the car once she swung off the handrail into the back-facing seat. The door slammed shut, and she yanked the lever to get them moving.

“Someone kill the rails! They’re escaping in a railcar!”

 _Too late._ The wheels were rolling, and these carriages had been designed to block attempts of highway robbery. Mechanisms encased in steel that bullets couldn’t dent, minimal visibility into the cabin, and everything controlled from the inside or by a control box at a station. They passed harmlessly through the western wall of light at the edge of Grassmarket, protected by the exoskeleton of the car, and left only electrified rails behind them.

Jessamine wanted to fall asleep right there in the carriage. She dabbed her shoulder, experimenting with the sharp sting it produced. Her fingers came away wet and dark, and it still felt like the wound was sapping the energy out of her. Whatever magic coated that axe, it had been strong.

It would take some time, but not much, for the Watch to spread the word about the railcar, but that was only part of their problem. It was heading west right now, but the carriage would have to circle back around to Coldridge. It was likely the only route that was programmed in to it. Corvo was thinking the same thing – she could see it on his face. They were going to have to switch tracks somehow, without access to a rail station. And ideally, they’d get rid of the carriage that was full speed ahead behind them, as well. They weren’t quite far enough away for comfort.

Corvo made the sign for “borrow” indicated at the crossbow still in her hand. It was less fluid than usual; some of the fingers on his left hand were stiff, possibly broken. He signed a quick thank-you when she handed it over, and she couldn’t help but smile behind the mask. He was escaping a conviction of treason by hijacked railcar with a masked felon, but he was at least going to be _polite_ about it.

He pulled on the handle of the door and it slid back easily, wind whipping into the cabin, and he clung onto the edge of one of the windows as he hung out the side.

“Be careful!” Jessamine exclaimed before she could think about stopping herself, and he glanced at her for that. He didn’t do anything so telling as furrow his brow or even widen his eyes, but he was taking a quick note of it before refocusing on more pressing matters. She couldn’t see much from her side of the cabin, but she saw the bend of one diverging track up ahead, the one they needed to be on to stay away from Coldridge. They hurtled past buildings that were abandoned or condemned or just plain not there anymore, and she felt the weight of regret for all of the people who she had already failed to save, for the stragglers left behind without much of anything to hope for.

And then Corvo loosed a bolt, and she could think of nothing but the deafening wail of metal scraping against metal and the turbulence that slammed her head against the wall of the cabin. She saw stars, and then realised they were sparks of electricity, flying up around the carriage in protest while it jostled.

Corvo apologised with his hands breathlessly, and handed her back her crossbow. The pursuing car careened off on its proper track, in entirely the wrong direction to catch them.

“Attention, all guards active in the Greater Dunwall area: All railcar passage is to be halted immediately. Any unauthorised individual operating a railcar is to be considered a fugitive of the state and must be apprehended.”

“Where are we going?” he signed next, and Jessamine sorely hoped he never tried to switch their tracks that way again, no matter how lucky they might have been this time. Jumping one wheel off its track did absolutely nothing to assure the other three, and they could easily have veered off the rail entirely and crashed squarely into the ground floor of one of these derelict terrace buildings, at which point the whole structure would probably have come down on top of them.

_Maybe one of these shards of bone is a lucky charm._

“We’ll need to get off the tracks altogether before we come up against a blockade.” She peered from the window. Their current ground-level was about to fall away, leaving them on the suspended rail bridge as they passed between the Waterfront and the Byron Residential District. When she slid back the door on her side, she saw that one of the factories down below was diligently chugging out white smoke that was being swirled about by the wind.

“We’ve got to jump,” she said.

Corvo looked understandably alarmed. He had thought this was a rescue. He didn’t particularly want to plummet to his death.

“Don’t worry,” she pulled their hips together. “Just hold on tight to me.” As she jumped from the threshold, mist streamed from the Mark, blending seamlessly with the factory-smoke, and the carriage carried on without them, gaping open and empty for the Guard to find.

They fell faster than she meant to – but then, she was carrying Corvo, too. He was gripping on tightly as she asked, and his face was buried in the shoulder of her coat – and it felt so nice to have him in her arms again, even though it was like this, even though he had no idea of the face behind her mask yet. When they didn’t hurtle directly into their doom as quickly as he expected, Corvo removed his eyes from her shoulder and watched her footwork as she took them down as slowly as she could manage. It was still much faster than she had become used to, and her knees jarred as they hit the ground despite the extra compensation she thought she’d given the landing. She and Corvo tumbled apart, flat on their backs.

He took longer to catch his breath than her, but held up his palm when she offered him a hand up. He had his arm draped over a propped-up knee when he stopped frowning at nothing and regarded her with an apprehensive look. _Who are you?_

Jessamine crouched down so that their faces were level with each other, and then she removed her masks from her face. The instant his eyes connected with hers, a strangled cry left his throat, and his hand flinched upwards; he couldn’t have resisted the urge to reach up and touch her face, and she would never have stopped him. The life that lighted his eyes made his dark irises that much richer, and she couldn’t help but beam at the slack wonder on his face, and the gentle caress of his hand on her cheek. She placed her hand over his, affirming its place, his place, _their_ place. They were together again at last.

“I’m real,” she told him, seeing the uncertainty behind his eyes that curbed his elation. “I’m here.”

There was a flicker of a smile, wonder-filled and breathless, before he became suddenly more alert, and retrieved his hand to make a special sign – the letter E, pinching his adam’s apple, followed by the double-tap of his index and thumb that meant ‘bird’. _Emily_.

“She’s safe,” she answered, and saw the relief wash over him. “She’s missed you terribly,” she added with a smile.

He returned one weakly, and croaked, “I…” He tried to clear his throat, but only coughed more, and Jessamine rubbed his back and shushed him. He tried to sign, but his hands were shaking as he tried to hold back more coughs.

“I know, my love,” she reassured him. “You missed her too.”

Making their way to the waterfront proper, Corvo couldn’t seem to stop looking around. He was nervous about being caught again, and she couldn’t blame him. They both would have preferred to take the rooftops, but he wasn’t in a condition to be running and jumping at the moment.

The streets were deserted. It wasn’t like the industrial districts were intended to be bustling, not in the middle of the day, but it wasn’t just that. She hadn’t seen any smoke rising from any of the factories besides the one they’d used for cover, and there were no sounds of busy workers coming from within.

The hacking cough that broke the silence made them both jump. “You two lovebirds headed down to the wharf, are you?” asked its owner, in a ragged old voice. Jessamine blinked at the shape crumpled beneath an awkward lean-to that she had mistaken for a pile of garbage and rags. “Dreadfully romantic,” they smiled.

Jessamine felt suddenly the absence of her mask. She wanted to hide from this person. That was horrible, wasn’t it? They were just a person. Left to decay by the roadside in her city. She should help them. “We… work at the fishery,” she tried, and though she said it with conviction, the vagrant just laughed. It sounded sore.

“The fishery, the fishery. No one works at the fishery any more. All went on strike, didn’ they? Whole place went bust. Went on down to Slaughterhouse Row for work. Slaughterhouse Row. Not much’o anything but dregs of whale oil up there, I heard. Just the dying cries’o whales for a few dregs’o oil.”

The city was falling to pieces. They needed to restore some kind of order, and fast. If they could get to the river, they might be able to spot Samuel. It was the only thing she could think to do; keep moving with Havelock’s plan.

“Good luck, lovebirds!” cooed the vagrant, and she paused, feeling the Heart. She reached into her pocket to wrap her hand around it, dreading what it might tell her about this stranger but needing to know nonetheless.

_"He pleaded with them to leave. Begged them not to help him. But now they are sick too."_

Jessamine made sure Corvo could stand on his own for a moment and then went to crouch next to them, after securing her mask over her mouth. She handed one of Sokolov’s elixirs to them, and said, “Try to hold on. I’m trying to fix this.”

They looked at her curiously. They had an upbeat sort of temperament, despite their condition, and that didn’t go away when they asked, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“You might have seen my face here or there,” she said.

She would have to be careful back at the Hound Pits from now on – seeing her and Emily together was dangerous enough, but Corvo had been by her side nearly every day since she was a teenager. If Pendleton wasn’t too drunk and self-absorbed to look, he was bound to see who she really was sooner or later. And she didn’t know what would happen after that.

She felt exposed standing on the pier, and there was nowhere to run if somebody came up behind them. Corvo had turned to watch her back in a manner so practiced that she was unsure if he was aware he was doing it, but it made her feel a little better as she scanned the water for Samuel’s skiff. She spotted him after a couple of minutes, tucked between two of the rocky outcroppings in the middle of the Wrenhaven.

“There he is. We need to signal him somehow.” She had no mirror to flash across the water, and even if there had been, the sky was filled with clouds. Being on the wharf did remind her of one thing though – the way sound carried over water. She tested the wind, and by some providence it was headed in the right direction. “I need you to whistle,” she told Corvo.

“Whistle what?” he signed.

She considered carefully. It needed to be innocuous enough not to attract any attention from unwanted parties, but Samuel needed to know it was intended for him. “Drunken Whaler,” she said. It occurred to her that Corvo might not know the tune, but he had already put his fingers to his mouth.

 _…early in the morning._ The skiff started to move, and Jessamine breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad to see you, Samuel,” she said, when he pulled up against the wharf.

He dipped his head, “Glad to see you too, ma’am. And yourself, Lord Corvo. It’s a pleasure.”

Corvo wobbled as he lowered himself into the boat, but Jessamine steadied him. It made her ache to have him sit opposite Samuel rather than try to squeeze him onto the back seat with her, but she didn’t want to cramp his leg, and someone would certainly get suspicious if they returned to the Hound Pits in that fashion. She kept her arm bridged over the divide, and he held onto it tightly.

Once the explanation started coming, it didn’t stop. Jessamine told Corvo – and Samuel, by extension – about everything that had happened since she came back. The Outsider, the Loyalists, finding Emily, her agreement with Sokolov; she filled him in on everything. If Samuel hadn’t had to take a longer route through the canals to avoid confrontation with the Watch, she wouldn’t have had time to relate it all.

“Pardon my intrusion, Majesty,” Samuel said, though he had been quiet throughout the story. “But why don’t you tell the gentlemen at the Hound Pits who you are? It seems an odd thing to leave to chance.”

She had left the Heart’s words out of her account. It seemed a tricky thing to explain, and, well— the Heart was a vulnerable thing. She didn’t want to reveal him to just anybody, when the world had been so cruel to him. She would tell Corvo, of course, later. But not yet. For now she just recalled the way the Heart had recoiled from Havelock’s bloodlust and Pendleton’s jealousy. She had seen these pieces of them with her own eyes, once she knew what to look for. “I don’t trust their motives,” she said. “Most, if not all of the men, are willing to kill their kin for power. I have heard them say as much myself.”

Samuel said, “Understood.”

The Heart, in voice so hushed she almost became convinced the men could have heard him otherwise, said, _“Yes. He does.”_


	8. Blue Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sleeping arrangements at the Hound Pits Pub are changed.

“Someone looks mighty pleased to see you,” Samuel said, and Jessamine smiled as Corvo perked up, catching sight of Emily on the shore of the Hound Pits, waving frantically. He raised his own hand to wave back, increasing in vigour the closer they got to the mooring point.

Jessamine didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing that they had been holding hands for the whole journey because Corvo was on his feet and jumping onto solid ground as soon as his legs could be relied upon to spring him across the gap. Into his outstretched arms leapt Emily, legs wrapping around his ribs, and he played into it that the impact caused him to spin on the spot.

When Samuel cut the engine on the _Amaranth_ , Jessamine turned to thank him, and found him beaming. He nodded, acknowledging her thanks before she even spoke it, and beckoned her to go join her family. Either Corvo’s knees had buckled or he’d lowered himself to the ground before they could, but he and Emily still had their arms tightly wrapped around each other.

“I knew she’d find you,” she whispered into Corvo’s shoulder, and Jessamine’s eyes darted to Havelock and Lydia standing close by. Emily had chosen her words carefully, though – nothing to indicate their relation. She’d gotten awfully good at this.

“Lord Corvo,” Havelock put a hand to his chest. “I’m Admiral Havelock. It’s an honour to have you with us here, but we’re a little unprepared for you. Our original plan to have you liberated from Coldridge Prison… fell through. We believed we were too late to save you, but – well, as you can see – our friend Hana disagreed. We, the Loyalists that is, have been convinced of your innocence from the start—”

“Perhaps you could do this later, Admiral,” Jessamine said. “He’s only just got the ground beneath his feet again.”

Havelock faltered. “Uh… yes. Yes, of course. I’ll be in the bar.” He did a stiff about turn and Jessamine restrained a sigh. As she and Emily helped Corvo to his feet (there was no harm in that, no forbidden contact, he was an injured man, what did it matter that she held onto his arm—) Lydia stepped forward and introduced herself.

“I have to apologise for the state of the place, sir. It’s hardly what Lady Emily and yourself are used to, but I suppose after Coldridge anything’s an improvement.”

She probably couldn’t tell, but Jessamine could recognise the slight smile on Corvo’s face before he started signing. People who spoke to him as if he was royalty made him almost as uncomfortable as the people who openly discriminated against him for his Serkonan background. It made him feel out-of-place, and he usually suspected that they were secretly mocking him anyway. He preferred to be addressed as Lydia was addressing him – no more and no less than a fellow human being.

It took him repeating the signs more slowly, but Jessamine managed to interpret his words for Lydia, “As long as it’s warm and dry, I’m forever in your debt.”

Lydia looked at her in surprise. “You know Serkonan Sign Language, miss? Full of surprises, you are.”

She hadn’t had to do so since Emily was learning, and she had a distinct memory of the day Corvo had finally, some years into her reign, decided to say something at court. She had interpreted the words he spoke with his hands, and they had addressed what he brought up. Nobody had said anything about it in the moment, but the next time they were at court, Cosme de Rivera was waiting to introduce themself Corvo – it seemed that the Lord Chamberlain deemed it unsuitable for the Empress to interpret her bodyguard’s words in a formal setting (or perhaps at all; although seeming sceptical themself, Cosme had offered to follow them around Dunwall Tower full-time).

Lydia gestured towards the pub. “Follow me, let’s get you out of the cold.”

As they climbed the steps, Jessamine saw Callista waiting by the entrance to the pub. She was balanced on her toes – eager to step in, but not daring to without permission. Jessamine held her tongue, reminding herself that it wasn’t hers to give. She needn’t have worried, though.

“Corvo, this is Callista,” Emily said, thereby granting her permission to step forward and join them in coming inside. “She’s my governess while I’m here,” she said slyly, and Corvo gave her a flicker of a smile before returning the courteous half-bow that Callista gave. Corvo knew what _governess_ meant; time for them to find all of the best hiding places and exploit them. None of the unfortunate women since Mrs. Baird had discovered how to stop them.

“Lady Emily, it is time to return to your lessons,” Callista said, her nerves at Corvo’s presence showing through more than a little. All of a sudden she knew about a rival to her guardianship of the Princess, and who would challenge the Lord Protector’s will in the Hound Pits Pub today? But Corvo only looked to Emily, who sighed and conceded that it probably _was_ time, with an unspoken promise passing between her and her father that they were going to find those hiding places later.

“Cecelia,” Lydia said, spotting the girl in the corridor, who froze upon hearing her name. “Lord Corvo is going to be staying at the Hound Pits. Strip down your bed and put fresh sheets on it. You can sleep in the bar.”

Corvo was already signing his objections when Cecelia murmured, “Yes, ma’am.”

“There’s an empty room adjacent to mine,” Jessamine hurried. “I can take that, and Corvo can have the bed that was given to me.” While Cecelia started to shake her head and Lydia worked her way through her initial bafflement at the suggestion, she continued, “I think Her Royal Highness would rather he slept close.”

Lydia shut her mouth and put an end to her objections before they could begin. ‘Hana’ may have been a guest, but Emily was a great deal more, and not one person in this pub was going to deny the future Empress what she wanted – except perhaps Callista, and Jessamine had to admire her that.

“You heard her, Cecelia. Redress the bed on the top floor. Now.” When she scurried off upstairs, Lydia turned her attentions back to Corvo. “This way, Lord Corvo.”

Realising she could justify being by his side no longer, Jessamine was forced to divorce herself from his arm. He met her eyes with comforting deep brown and a message: _We will see each other again soon._ Such a parting of ways, you might think she was sending him halfway around the world, rather than into the next room. Still, it was almost the same thing – she could no more protect him from the next room than she could from the shores of Pandyssia. Was this how he had felt, departing from Gristol a thousand years ago?

In the bar, Callista was sitting alone in one of the booths with textbooks in front of her. Jessamine approached and wondered aloud if Emily had made her escape so quickly.

“She has been particularly argumentative today, fighting me on every fact, but she is only over there,” she answered, pointing to the booth across the bar where Havelock, Pendleton, and Piero were seated. Havelock looked to be somewhat distressed, under questioning from a highly inquisitive Emily. “I asked her a question about Gristol’s Navy and she seemed adamant to collect the answer from a primary source.”

“Makes sense,” Jessamine said, and felt a small amount of remorse for putting Callista through this at her sigh. She hadn’t been thinking of how the governess was going to manage Emily this morning, only concerned with correcting her daughter’s incomplete information. An apology for a later time, though. “Actually, I wonder if I might have a word.”

“Of course,” she blinked.

She moved her eyes to the door, and Callista caught her meaning, following her out. They didn’t stray far, just to the half-alley between the bar and the workshop. Jessamine wished she could have avoided the feeling of deep and terrible concern on Callista’s face – this was not a time where secrets shared tended to be good news – but there was no point in trying to alleviate her fear considering what she was about to say. Callista seemed neither shocked nor disbelieving about Piero’s unsavoury activities towards her, which was at once relieving and disheartening. Her nose still wrinkled with the disgust of the very idea, she said, “I didn’t realise he was quite so… _infatuated_.”

“A kinder word than he deserves,” she remarked.

Callista put a hand to her shoulder and said, “Thank you for telling me.” Before Jessamine could respond, she looked at her hand, frowning as she lifted it from the frayed fabric, “Are you—you’re bleeding. Goodness, I—”

Jessamine put her hand over the wound. It was where Sullivan had sliced her with that axe, but it didn’t hurt any more, not like it should. She wasn’t _bleeding_ correctly. Excusing herself, she walked briskly to the kennels.

She heard Sokolov taking notes on an audiograph about the sense of awareness, or lack thereof, that the weepers in the cage seemed to have.

“They have a remarkable amount of energy, considering they’ve not been fed—”

“I’ve been feeding them,” Jessamine interrupted. When Anton turned to stare at her, flabbergasted, she said, “They seemed hungrier than I was.”

“Jessamine, an observational study isn’t any use at all if you tamper with the _confounded_ variables, what—”

He was cut off by the extension of her arm, and he clicked the autograph recorder off. He made a series of impatient motions that she recognised as _get this jacket out of my way_ and obliged, not without a tick of irritation. “You can’t keep calling me that,” she said, and he hushed her, examining the wound.

“Deep laceration, discharging a dark substance… almost black. Not as much of it as there would be blood.” His tone shifted abruptly as he went from talking to himself to talking to her, “There’s pieces of fabric in the wound. I need to clean this, it might get infected.”

“Is that even possible anymore?”

“If you’d like to take a chance to find out, I’m sure the results would be fascinating,” he said darkly. “But as Royal Physician, I must recommend we sterilise this before we learn of your limitations in the most inconvenient way possible.”

He directed her to sit down and dabbed a cotton pad with sterilising fluid. Jessamine watched the weepers in the cage wander closer, reaching through the bars. Desperate for touch, desperate for comfort.

“Rather ironic that you should start bleeding blue _now_ ,” he mused.

She looked. It was dark, and shiny, and could catch the light in any which way. “It’s not blue, Anton.”

“It could be blue. I think, my dear, what it is _not_ is blood. And you don’t feel this at all, I take it?”

“I can feel you dabbing it,” she frowned. “Should it hurt?”

“Yes,” he said. “And so should the stitches I’m about to give you, but I suspect that won’t be an issue, either. I shall be interested to see…” he threaded the needle and met her eyes, “…how this heals. I’ll advise you not to watch this. It might be unsettling.”

“I think I’m used to being unsettled by now.”

He shuffled his eyebrows, a shrug of the face while he kept his hands steady. “Well, matters can be different where one’s own body is concerned. But do as you will.”

She watched the needle go in and then looked away. He was right. It felt strange.

When she crossed the courtyard, she was immediately accosted by Piero, who was apparently nearing completion on some devices that he was engineering for her. The first was a hidden blade that strapped to the inside of her wrist, and she thought she recognised the mechanism. Her suspicions were confirmed when he showed her the other function of the device – it was a wristbow that could be loaded with one bolt or sleep dart at a time. Additionally, he presented her with an improvement on Anton’s sleep tincture delivery mechanism, that would send her targets to sleep faster.

His final invention was what appeared to be a cigarette holder – he seemed to be inspired by the upcoming Boyle party into creating items for disguised spycraft. As demonstrated, the cigarette holder captured and amplified sound, so that if she pointed it at a conversation she intended to eavesdrop on, she could hear it clearly. The sound was focused enough that nobody around her would notice the device, unless the speaker end was pointed at them. She tested it out on Havelock, who was exiting the bar with Emily in tow, chattering away. He looked rather eager to escape, but she was keeping up with him perfectly well, and he clearly didn’t want to dismiss her outright.

“…Empress, won’t I? And then I’ll have to sink lots of enemy ships myself, because that’s what empresses do, mostly, isn’t it?” Jessamine smiled; she knew perfectly well that it was not. Clearly nobody had warned Admiral Havelock about the dangers of entering into a conversation about sea battles with Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin.

“Of… course,” he replied uncomfortably.

“I knew it! I read that some pirate ships have witches aboard that can cause storms or make whales do what they want. Is that true?”

“Yes. Er, mostly. Maybe you should return to Callista, now,” he suggested.

While Piero worked on Jessamine’s boots, having found some blueprints for a sole that would give her quieter steps, and she started to wonder what all of these upgrades would cost her.

He said, “I wish to speak to you about what you witnessed earlier this morning…” At the workbench, he peered up at her from behind his glasses, and looked away again when he saw that she was waiting for him to continue. “I am not eager to cause unnecessary tension and strain in our group. I am sure you understand the importance of this operation remaining a—well, a well-oiled machine, as it were. So I thought it necessary to talk to you to ensure your… that we have no misunderstandings between us.”

“What do you think I have misunderstood?” she said. This was the kind of apology – in the old sense of the word – that she encountered on a frequent basis at court. It was the very first thing she had learned how to field. An apology without repentance; an apology that actually attempted to be a justification for one’s actions, without offending anyone further. Sometimes, these ‘apologies’ included bribes. She suspected she had unwittingly already accepted it.

“Uh,” said Piero, and his ears flushed red. “Well, I—I—I don’t think we need to involve, uh, you know, parties other than ourselves. To resolve this.”

“Ah,” she said. “So you do not wish me to inform Callista that you frequently spy on her while she is bathing. Is that what you mean?”

The colour spread to his cheeks and he stammered for a few moments before he said, in a quiet voice, “Yes. I mean—What I mean is, I know that you are a woman of honour, and that you could kill me at any time. For both these reasons, I apologise and I beg your discretion in this matter.”

It was funny. Those were the same two reasons that people apologised to her when she was an Empress, although they usually didn’t express the second one in those words. “I see. Unfortunately – for you, that is – Callista already knows about your activities. I think if you decide to repeat this offence, it won’t be me you have to worry about.”

“You told her?” he squeaked, sounding very small.

“I need my shoes back, if you please,” she said. She thought she might get to her chambers this evening and find that an itemised bill had been delivered to her bedside, but there was nothing she could really do about that. She added ‘invoice Piero Joplin’ to her mental list of things to ask Maia to do once she returned to Dunwall Tower.

The attic rooms were not about to get more comfortable now that she had surrendered her bed, but truthfully she had barely slept since coming to the Hound Pits. The rooms had been well-suited to practicing with her new weapons, since the floor below this one was bricked up due to (what she had gathered was) a combination of plague-infected rooms and severe rot on the walls. However, if Corvo was sleeping in the attic, she would have to take her practice into the courtyard, which she disliked for the feeling of being watched at all times.

There was a backing board that had long ago lost its painting that she had been using as a target in the attic. She decided to use every minute while she could, and practiced loading, aiming, and firing the wristbow.

She heard the clearing of somebody’s throat, and turned, startled to see Corvo leaning on the doorframe. Of course it was Corvo – nobody else here could sneak up on her so well with an injured leg. He was looking so much better than he had at Grassmarket that she could almost forget that this morning he had woken up ready to be executed. He had bathed, his hair fluffy and shiny and free of tangles, and the grime layered on his skin scoured away. The fresh clothes seemed practically gleaming, and all of his cuts were dressed equally well. He still had thick stubble and dark shadows under his eyes, but he looked rugged rather than haggard.

“You need,” he tried to say, although his voice was scratchy and sounded sore. He made an unhappy face. “Anchor,” he signed, trimming out all of the unnecessary preposition words. She recalled her ancient training in archery from when she was a girl, and understood his meaning. She would never aim well if she held her arm in a different position each time she loosed a bolt.

She held up the wristbow as if firing at the target, and Corvo delicately took her wrist from behind and turned it, so that it faced more upwards. He also, predictably, took advantage of the position to wrap his other arm around her waist and rest their heads together over her shoulder. She leaned into the contact, breathing in the fresh floral fragrance of him, and let practice be forgotten. It had been seven months since they had held each other like this. She felt they had earned a moment to indulge in each other.

“It seems we have become a fairytale, my love,” she said, and he hummed happily. Crossing the turbulent, unforgiving oceans that separated the living from the dead just to hold one another once more – it was like an old epic, or a tale from one of Emily’s storybooks. All this time at the Pits she had been wearing clothes meant for him. She felt as if she ought to have known that, or been told that, that it was somehow important although she couldn’t say what it would have changed. She turned her head to meet him in a kiss, and then said, “Now stop being romantic and get the weight off that leg.”

His laugh was cracked and airy, but his eyes twinkled with it, and he let her support him to the bed in the other room. He tried to hide it, but he winced and caught his breath when he sat down as the angle of his knee changed. Lydia had put some support around it, but he probably shouldn’t have been walking on it at all. It was a pity she had just had her conversation with Piero, or she might have been able to ask him to find or make Corvo a crutch. She would have to ask Cecelia for her help on the matter.

Corvo, seeing the cogs whirring behind her eyes as she tried to problem-solve, signed, “I am fine.” When she looked unamused by the assertion, he took her hand in both of his and kissed it, then released her and continued, “You are here. Emily is safe.”

_“That is all he needs,”_ finished the Heart, voicing the part that neither of them had needed to say.

She sat down on the bed next to him, and they leaned into each other. Their arms linked, and Corvo hooked his good foot around Jessamine’s when she twined her fingers through his. She used to fantasise about wedding bands. An act of open, but quiet rebellion, a declaration of love where none was expected or wanted by the courtiers around them. She wasn’t oblivious to the rumours of the relationship between Corvo and herself, but none of the gossip was kind. None of it captured the truth of the matter – she had not been bewitched by the seductive southern _d_ _ébauch_ _é_ they liked to imagine, nor did she use Corvo in the way that Waverly Boyle used her servant boys.

Falling in love with Corvo was like learning again a dance that she had forgotten. The memory was still there, somewhere deep and far away from her conscious mind. Seared into her soul. And once she remembered the steps, it was the most natural thing in the world. Seeing his smile for the first time, the first whisper of her name by his lips, was the return of an old friend she had never known in this life.

Jessamine hadn’t believed in soulmates before Corvo. How could there be someone in the world so perfectly matched to you, loved so completely as to transcend the beating of a heart?

She had known when she realised that she could share whole conversations with Corvo in a glance. She had known when he caught her sneaking from her bedroom in the middle of the night, and on a thousand days of dancing and learning to fight, and when they shared their first kiss, and the second, and every kiss since, and when Emily was born, and the day he left for Dabovka, and the day he returned. The depth of her love sometimes astounded her – the kind of vastness that could wreck ships, swallow cities. She had thought once, in a bout of romanticism, that people might fear the Void a little less if they understood the volume of love that a soul could hold.

When the time came for the Princess to take dinner, she asked to dine with Corvo in his new chambers, since she thought it cruel to make him hobble all the way downstairs. She sat on the floor of the dusty attic with her tray in front of her, and sat across from her father at dinner for the first time.

Also for the first time, Jessamine got an acute sense of what life had been like at Dunwall Tower for Corvo – longing to be a father to Emily, but being unable to escape prying eyes, and tongues that were bated to accuse him of impropriety. He and Emily had played with wooden swords and done rock climbing in the Tower gardens when her governesses would let them get away with it, and their games of pirates were elaborate and involved, but he had never been allowed to simply share a meal with her, unless he was invited by Jessamine – and if she did that too often, the rumours would get out of hand.

Jessamine didn’t even have the guise of the Lord Protector role to allow her to stand in the background of the scene, until Emily looked up and said, with the utmost politeness, “Hana, won’t you join us?”

She declined Callista’s offer to fetch her a plate, but completed the circle – Corvo on the bed, Emily opposite on the floor, and Jessamine and Callista on either side. Emily talked enough for the entire dinner party as always, announcing her plans to sail the sea, fight witches and sea monsters, possibly have a long and tragic romance with one (“The witches?” Corvo signed, “Or the sea monsters?”) and eventually perish at sea at the hands of a famed pirate captain who would, ideally, be promptly swallowed by a whale. Callista looked distressed, but Corvo… Corvo laughed, and Jessamine felt the dust be brushed off a little piece of her soul as it remembered how to dance.

Corvo tired before Emily did and Callista, perceiving this, suggested that they retire to the tower across the walkway for tonight. Emily relented, wishing both Corvo and Hana goodnight, and when they were alone again, Jessamine and Corvo shared a smile. She thought they were both remembering the numerous occasions that mirrored this one in their memories, the desperate attempts of governesses, secretaries, and stewards to pry Emily apart from the two of them from any length of time, so that everybody had a chance to fulfil their duties or get some sleep.

Jessamine gathered the plates and took them downstairs, where Wallace was letting Cecelia do all of the washing up again and speaking to her in the way that Lord Pendleton spoke to him.

“You don’t have to put up with that, you know,” she said.

Cecelia no longer jumped when she was spoken to – that was progress. “I don’t mind,” she shrugged, filling the bowl with clean water and soap as the last round of dishes were added to her workload. There was a pause where she seemed to debate saying something with herself. “Hana… can I tell you something?”

She tried not to let her surprise show in her voice. “Of course.”

“I’ve a secret retreat nearby that may come in handy if the City Watch ever kicks in the doors. It’s an abandoned apartment across from the bar. I don’t think anyone else here knows about it. The key is stashed under my bunk.”

This was, she thought, the most words Cecelia had said to her at once without a waver in her voice. She was somewhat startled to be trusted with this information, given the relatively short time they had known each other. “Thank you,” she said. “But why are you telling me this?”

“I feel I can trust you,” she said, her shy smile returning before she submerged the first plate into the suds and water and started to scrub it. “If there’s ever trouble, you can go there for safety. I know I will.”

She murmured another thank-you and went back up the stairs. She found Corvo still sitting on the edge of the bed, with his boots unlaced and his face in his hands. She touched a gentle hand to his shoulder, and he drew in a quick breath through his nose as if just waking up. “Need help?” she asked, and he smiled gratefully.

Taking off her gloves, she finished unlacing his boots and tugged them off as delicately as she could. She pulled back the blankets so that his leg could be levered onto the bed without having to pull them out from under him. When he was lying down, she brushed his hair from his face and let her fingers trail down to his stubble. He tilted his head to nuzzle into her hand, his eyes already closed and his breaths long and sleepy. She stroked his cheek for a moment, and prepared herself to start drawing away slowly in the least disruptive manner possible.

The word was mostly breath, but she heard him when he said, “Stay?”

She should tell him no; that it was no less risky here than it had been in Dunwall Tower, possibly even more so. She should be training, getting used to her equipment and her powers, seeing as she didn’t have the benefit of twenty years’ worth of swordsmanship. At the very least, she should scope the hideout that Cecelia had mentioned and establish a clear escape route for herself, Corvo, and Emily should the need arise. If she wasn’t going to sleep – and she was starting to doubt that she could – then she should do something useful.

“Please,” Corvo asked.

She sighed. “Of course, my love,” she said. “I will be here.” She threaded her fingers through his hair, and he made a sound that she thought was meant to be a hum, if only his voice were there to back it up.

At some point between the dusk and the dawn, Jessamine began to dream. She was in the grander receiving room at Dunwall Tower, and Maia had just hurried in and informed her with a hushed voice that the Duchess of Redmoor had arrived unexpectedly and was demanding to be received. Jessamine asked Maia if she had anywhere urgent to be, without being quite sure if she should be glad of an excuse or not. Maia informed her with some apprehension that she did not, and she therefore nodded – for better or for worse – to show the Duchess in.

Two page boys had slipped in behind Maia, and the taller one, Fabian, bowed and exited the room to relay the welcome. The other looked stiff and unsure of himself, unsure of where to leave his eyes. She didn’t know why her attention lingered on the page boy when she should be worrying about the appropriate greeting for the Duchess. His white-blond hair was distinctive, but she had the strange sensation that she had seen him somewhere before and she didn’t know where.

“What is your name?” she asked him.

“Atticus, Your Majesty,” he squeaked. She felt sorry for him; he had probably been told that the Empress wouldn’t pay him any mind. All the same, she had questions.

“Have you been working for the Duchess long, Atticus?” she asked. Perhaps he had accompanied the Duchess on her last visit to the Tower – whenever that had been.

“No, ma’am,” he answered, and then his ear tilted to the door and he announced, much louder and more confidently, “The Lady Delilah Kaldwin, Duchess of Redmoor.”

Lady Delilah was a tall, cold, sharp-boned woman. She was wearing a flowing dress embroidered with a pattern of roses and brambles, and an expression equally as thorny. She swept a curtsey, low and elegant; less a show of respect than a demonstration of grace and decorum. When she straightened, she said with a malicious smile, “Hello, sister.”

Jessamine’s eyes drifted to Atticus who, rather than staring straight ahead as Fabian was doing, was flicking his gaze back and forth between Delilah and herself.

“Mother,” Emily said, shaking her, “Mother, wake up!”

As she started awake, she realised that at some point during the night, she had lain down beside Corvo, and he had put his arm around her. She almost scrambled out of bed for fear of Callista or Lydia seeing them, but realised that the room was empty. Emily was nowhere in sight, and she rubbed her eyes as she sat up. She searched for the particles of Void that seemed to gather around her daughter, and saw that she was still in her tower.

Jessamine crossed the walkway and opened the door to find that Callista and Emily were still asleep. Callista had never made it to her bed; she was slouched in the chair next to Emily’s, her palm open on the mattress. Evidently she had been holding her hand during the night, but now Emily was untethered, tossing and turning in her sleep. She kicked her legs and tried to twist herself out of arms or bonds that weren’t there.

She remembered her old fear of the dark – with the first monsters of her storybooks and imagination had come the first nightmares. A candle was kept burning in Lady Emily’s chambers from sunset to sunrise every night for a little over a year, before she began to delight in the idea of hidden things and vicious, silent creatures that hunted in the night. Jessamine had always suspected that Corvo had had something to do with the change, but he had never admitted to it. Emily had rarely had nightmares after that.

“Please, please leave a candle for me. It’s dark in here, and I can’t see my mother,” she pleaded, a sleepy slur eating at the edges of her words.

Except for (she remembered with a wince) when she had first learned of assassins and coups. She hadn’t been scared for herself, only her mother, and insisted on sleeping in her chambers – with a candle lit – for about a week. This one she knew had been down to Corvo to stop, when he sat her on Jessamine’s bed between the two of them and explained the time-honoured tradition of the Royal Protector.

“Where is Corvo?” she mumbled.

Jessamine stroked her hair and tried to shush her as quietly as she could. She didn’t have as much practice at soothing Emily’s nightmares as Corvo did. Even when she did have them occasionally, Jessamine only ever heard about it the next day. When Emily was scared, she shouted for Corvo, or stole into his room and curled up beside him in the dead of night. She was sometimes envious – despite the distance they were forced to have in public, Corvo was close with Emily in ways that Jessamine was not. “He’s close,” she assured her in a whisper. “You’re safe.”

“Mother…” she whined, and reached out her hand, palm-down. Before she could take it, she said, “I don’t like your eyes. Why are they so black? Stop looking at me.”

She froze, all of the warmth draining from her body, and she felt a pit in her stomach. Callista began to stir in her seat, and Jessamine fled the tower before she could be spotted. She let the Mark carry her, gliding through the air and picking up speed. For the first time since the assassin killed her, she felt her heart thundering inside her chest.


	9. Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations are made for the Boyle Party, and Princess Emily resolves a conflict at the Hound Pits Pub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mention of suicide

“Hana, where have you been?” Pendleton said tersely. “Havelock wanted to brief you on the Boyle party this morning and you were nowhere to be found.”

“I…” Jessamine stammered. In truth, much of the morning was a blur. After fleeing Emily’s tower she had skimmed above the city for some time, barely taking in her surroundings. She thought in reflection that she had been spotted by tallboys or servants or somebody else who relegated themselves to the rooftops more than once, but she hadn’t paid them any mind, and had been too fast for them to catch.

The only thing that stopped her at the Wrenhaven’s mouth was the boom of distant thunder, and the realisation that she was heading towards the clouds gathering to the east, almost black with rain and shadow. They said the great leviathans lived in stormclouds and broiling waves far out to sea. Maybe the Void was looking out for her, snapping her back to reality with a timely rumble. Or maybe it had been trying to entice her, and her common sense snapped back into place just in time. As soon as she had come back to herself, she had felt exhausted, and had to drain several vials of spiritual remedy just to summon the energy to get back to the Pits.

“I had business to attend to,” she said, and it sounded lame on her tongue. It was an excuse carted out often enough when she was Empress. She remembered the first time Maia had said, _The Empress has other business to attend to_ , in order to bring an audience to a swift end. The phrase had had power then – now it felt like a weak justification and a suspicious lack of detail.

When she entered the bar, Havelock seemed to be on his way out. Now _he_ had business to attend to, and he made it sound much more important and deserving of a Loyalist’s time than she had minutes before. He promised to pick up the briefing later, but there was none of the flexibility and tact that she had come to expect from Havelock. The atmosphere in the room was ice cold, and she couldn’t meet the eyes of either Cecelia or Callista to get a clue of what was going on. Emily, at least, smiled at her, and then returned to her work before Jessamine could be told off for being distracting.

Having drained herself of all her energy in the morning, she went to Piero’s workshop in order to ask for a refill of spiritual remedy, and all became clear. In her absence, the men had been talking. Piero must have jumped at the chance to dirty her name at the first slip-up she made. He overcharged her for the refill, and she didn’t have the energy to object. On her way up the stairs, she just barely remembered to ask Lydia if she would talk to Piero on Corvo’s behalf to see about getting him a cane.

She tried to settle on something to do – training with her weapons, or going over the notes in her pocketbook. An Empress should always have something to do. Scrawl her signature at the end of a correspondence penned by Maia or one of her undersecretaries, review the bills being debated in Parliament, check with her Chamberlain that all of the correct royal visits had been scheduled, write back to the Duchess of Redmoor…

She remembered the regal Lady Delilah of her dream. She didn’t understand why so many old memories were being dredged up since the attempt on her life. Perhaps she was still dying – reliving her most defining moments in slow motion, mourning all the opportunities and friends lost. How many times had she thought about trying to find Delilah since she became Empress?

So much had changed since they had last seen each other. Jessamine wanted her secret big sister back, who would get her into trouble with the staff and her father. Who would then later on sneak treats from the kitchen and bring them to the nursery, because Jessamine had started to cry when Mrs. Duggery shouted, and Delilah couldn’t stand it when Jessamine cried. They would cram the pastries into their mouths and giggle before their sour-faced tutor could find them. Jessamine didn’t know if Delilah and her mother had stayed in Dunwall after they left the Tower. She wondered bleakly if she would even recognise her corpse.

She gave up trying to occupy herself. Instead, she curled in the blankets that Cecelia had left for her in the room adjacent to Corvo’s, and fell into a dreamless sleep for the remainder of the day.

When she woke, she found that things were clearer. The fog of dread that had hung over her the previous day had dispersed, leaving her with the realisation that the Hound Pits Pub was just a court, despite its much more crummy appearance, and outwardly disreputable courtiers. There were agendas, and disagreements, and actions necessary for the machinery of politics to run smoothly.

“Why are people angry at each other?” Emily asked in the morning, as she was drawing on the backs of posters on the attic floor. “Callista said it was ‘ _nothing I should concern myself with_ ’—” she imitated her tutor’s voice, “—but she said in my lessons that it’s an Empress’s _job_ to settle disputes above the court. And we don’t have a court right now, but if everyone’s mad, they _won’t_ be very good at organising a conspiracy.”

It was founded on her childhood lessons – that anger was not an emotion to make decisions with, and it was definitely _not_ an excuse to steal a bag of flour from the kitchen and empty it onto her tutor’s head as he came up the stairs – but it was a sound assessment. Good monarchs could not afford to be angry, even righteously so, to act out of malice, or pettiness, or desire for revenge. Historically there were very few Emperors or Empresses that held by this rule, if any, but Jessamine wasn’t going to try and dissuade Emily from trying to be the first.

“Piero was disrespectful to Ms. Curnow,” Jessamine told her. “I expect he has told the other men that he is being unduly prosecuted for my informing Callista of this fact. The Hound Pits has split into camps – those who support Piero, and those who do not.”

“But isn’t Admiral Havelock a friend of Callista’s uncle?” Emily frowned. “ _And_ he’s the one who hired her to be my governess. He should not be allowing Callista to be disrespected.” Jessamine was impressed that she had picked that up – it was good practice for court. Hidden connections and allegiances.

“I doubt Piero presented it to him as a matter of disrespect,” she said.

She contemplated the end of her pencil and tapped it against her chin idly a few times, and then went back to drawing. Jessamine knew Emily well enough to suspect that this was not the end of the matter.

When she got downstairs, she found that most of the Loyalist men were already gathered in the bar. Some were perched on stools, others were standing, and most had drinks in their hands. Nobody paid her any attention as she approached the group – except Lydia, who cocked a pint glass with a question on her face without interrupting Havelock. Jessamine shook her head.

“Entering a hive of aristocrats, all who live to kiss the Lord Regent’s backside. I’d rather swim with the hagfish,” he shuddered. Although Treavor looked about as aware of his surroundings as a drunk hagfish himself, Havelock hurried to add, “Lord Pendleton is the exception, of course.”

Anton snorted, “You’d rather party with Pendleton, would you? Say what you will about the Boyles, but they know how to throw a party. I was quite looking forward to it, to tell the truth.“

“I think, under the circumstances, a low profile is best,” Martin advised warily, clearly recalling some of the more outrageous tales that had been passed onto him concerning Sokolov at parties. “But if you miss any of the _festivities_ too dearly, I’m sure Piero could use his contacts to fetch a bottle of some sort.”

Both Piero and Anton scoffed, the former turning his nose up while the latter turned his whole face away with a scowl. Jessamine sighed inwardly, and reaffirmed her silent decision not to tell Anton where his precious King Street Brandy had been sourced from.

She heard slow boots on the stairs, and watched the doorway for the newcomer, seeing as the men were yet to acknowledge her presence. Corvo appeared, steadying himself in the doorway, and he looked tired, but his face lighted when he saw her. She was so busy smiling at him that for a moment she didn’t realise that the men had paused their conversation to stare as well.

“Lord Corvo, how are you feeling?” asked Havelock as he limped over, pulling a stool out so that he could sit at the edge of the group. He had not come down from the attic since going up there on the first night – she was quite sure that Havelock had not seen Corvo since he arrived at the pub.

He signed, and Jessamine interpreted, “I am well. Thank you.” It was a somewhat meaningless platitude he’d picked up from court that didn’t allow for any further, more personal questions.

“Can we do anything for you?” Martin asked.

Corvo, not taking his eyes off Jessamine, signed, “I had to make sure you were real.”

She smiled at him, and was only reminded that she was expected to interpret when all of the other men’s stares settled on her. She said, “Ah, by chance could the Lord Attano get something to eat?” Corvo’s wry smile as Lydia was waved at reflected what Jessamine was thinking: That she was out of practice at this. Not only the interpreting, but the quick lies and half-truths they had become accustomed to in the early days of their relationship.

“While you’re here, let me take a measurement for that cane,” Piero bustled, producing a tape measure from his pocket. Corvo looked alarmed for a moment, until he caught Jessamine’s apologetic look. She hadn’t meant for it to be sprung on him in this way, but she probably should have expected it.

“No doubt you still have some dizziness and nausea from the concussion,” Anton said. “I should prescribe you an additional dose of my elixir, to give you your strength back. It’ll have you feeling like your old self in no time.”

Piero snorted, tucking his measure back into his pocket, “Sokolov’s elixir may protect the body from the plague, but mine fortifies the mind. What you need is protection from those spirits of malicious intent that would do you harm.”

When Lydia brought a plate over, Anton and Piero devolved into an argument about the benefits and drawbacks of their elixirs. After thanking Lydia for the food with a gesture that – although she didn’t speak Serkonan Sign – she seemed to understand well enough from his grateful smile, Corvo signed to Jessamine that he was going to go upstairs and lie in the dark, rolling his eyes slightly at the quickly heating debate.

She watched him go before she returned her attention to the men at the table. Havelock and Martin seemed to have given up all hope of stopping the tirade of insults being exchanged between the philosophers, so Jessamine took it upon herself to interrupt.

“How do you expect me to infiltrate this party?” she asked. “You can’t imagine they won’t be checking for invitations, and I doubt I can impersonate Anton here for any length of time.”

It seemed Havelock hadn’t given the notion any thought. Rather than try to make up for the oversight, he seemed to believe it wasn’t his problem to solve. He replied, “Well, you’re the creative sort. I’m sure you can find an invitation. Or forge one, even. And you already have a mask for the occasion.”

“You mean the mask I have been diligently terrorising the state in?” she asked flatly. She had done her best to avoid unwanted attention, but the posters had sprung up quickly, offering a large reward for anybody that turned her over the City Watch, or indeed killed her. She had had to fend off a servant wielding a firepoke and even a plague-addled weeper who, rather than being lost in a stupor as most of the poor souls seemed to be, had pointed and run at her, mumbling and groaning about needing money for an elixir to clear his head. The Heart had said sadly that the man was well past elixirs now.

At best, showing up to the Boyle Manor wearing Hana’s mask and coat would be called out as in extremely poor taste. At worst, she would be shot on the spot.

She knew Havelock’s tone well. It was the _If you’re so smart, figure it out yourself_ tone that lordly men had a habit of adopting anytime they felt she didn’t heed their advice as much as she ought to. She thought he needn’t worry about fitting in well at nobles’ parties, with an attitude like that. In fact, she had become more sure over the last few days that she remembered him from a state dinner some years ago. He had been seated on Corvo’s other side, and had spent most of the evening trying to engage in a conversation about military history that Corvo had had absolutely no inclination to participate in.

Well, Jessamine _would_ figure it out herself. After the meeting convened, she walked down to the river’s shore and asked Samuel when it might be convenient for him to take her out in the _Amaranth_ for an excursion to Drapers’ Ward. If he was nervous about taking off on trips without the Admiral’s go-ahead, he didn’t show it. He said he would be done with his routine maintenance shortly, and would be happy to ferry her anywhere she wished to go.

When they were on the water, he asked what her interest in the district was. She knew from her time in the city and additional comments from the Heart that it had fallen into some disrepair since being hit by the plague, with nobody filling the once-busy high street. Select businesses that were sponsored by the gang warfare in the city had stayed afloat, but others, that could usually rely on the patronage of the nobles houses of Gristol, were suffering. It seemed that most nobles would rather import their new-fashioned clothes from black-market sources abroad than risk a garment made by the tailors of Dunwall. Her business on Drapers’ Ward was quite straightforward; she was going shopping.

“I’ve noticed some tension round abouts the pub since Lord Corvo got here,” he broached. “But I don’t think it’s to do with him.”

She winced. “A mistake on my part. I had a conversation with Piero for which I did not thoroughly assess the ramifications. I’m not used to…” she trailed off. She didn’t know how to end the sentence without sounding like a sheltered princess.

“You’re not used to people acting as they’d like to around you,” Samuel supplied.

She put her chin in her hand and murmured, “Yes.” She missed Maia and her astute words, composing her every speech and letter as if she were translating Jessamine’s very thoughts and intentions onto the page from her mind. If she had to guess from Hiram’s loudspeaker announcements, Maia was no longer in the Tower’s employment. She hoped she was okay.

“Well, Majesty, you can count on my support. I reckon I’ve seen enough of the bad in this city to recognise the good when I see it – if you’ve had a disagreement with the Admiral, I have faith you can sort it. This city needs the both’a you, even if he don’t know it yet.”

Despite the moniker, she got the sense that he would have believed the same even if he had had no idea who she was. It meant a lot to her to feel someone other than her immediate family backing her. “Thank you, Samuel.”

As they approached, he explained that the Dead Eels, having control of the Wrenhaven in its entirety except where it intersected the flooded district, had blocked off the Millenary Canal running along the middle of Drapers’ Ward when they lost control of the street to the Hatters. In any case he wasn’t eager to drive the skiff directly into the war-torn territory, and he dropped her off at the edge of the district.

The first thing she did was climb as high as she could, onto the roofs of the buildings. Already, she could hear a rally of gunfire in the street below, and she needed to get the lay of the land. She had visited the dressmaker’s studio before, but usually he was summoned to the Tower to take his measurements. The Empress had no time to strut around Drapers’ Ward as it was fashionable to do, so even when she had been here before, it was by the railcar line, and she had had no reason to take particular stock of her surroundings.

Finding the studio required some trial and error that mostly saw her breaking into vacant apartments, but in one instance actually landed her at the base of the Drapers’ Ward Salvage and Resale. Or, as Jerome was quick to offer up, the black market. Apparently the appearance of her character made her a likely patron of such places. Some conversation with Jerome told her that his wares included all manner of weapons, ammunition, and devices useful for espionage. He also had elixirs for sale – she was shocked to see vials of Piero’s remedy alongside Anton’s elixir. It seemed the Loyalists’ inventor wasn’t above distributing his products illegally, either. She wondered if she ought to copy and frame the definition of a quarantine for the Hound Pits’ wall.

Jerome also had a range of fresh Serkonan fruits, Pandyssian herbs, and various other foreign alcohols and recreationals. She asked about his supplier and he clammed up, but she suspected the Dead Eels.

 _"Can you hear them too?”_ the Heart whispered urgently. _“Crying out in the dark?"_

He was prone to these sorts of phrases, sudden bursts of desperation when there was nothing she could do to help him, but even so she reached for the Mark and let her Void-gaze turn the world grey. There were no phantoms or wraiths she could perceive that might be haunting the boy, but as she swept her eyes around, she was caught on a bright smudge of colour. She moved, and saw from the way it shifted in her perspective that it was some way away.

It had a kind of haze around it, the same one she had seen around Emily, and wondered as she started towards the shape if there was some connection. Once she had Emily’s curled-up form to compare it to, she perceived that it was a person – an adult this time, she thought, sitting perfectly still on the floor with their legs stretched out before them. She had a sinking feeling as she got closer, and it soon became undeniable that the Void-touched thing was the dressmaker, immobile in his studio.

When she entered, she was hit by the smell of urine – unpleasant, but not accompanied by the stink of death and decay like so many apartments in the city were. His eyes were wide open and he was pale, but it wasn’t the pallor of plague or the stare of a dead man. She held her ear to his face and heard his breaths coming, shallow and quiet. Above his head, a rune was affixed to the wall and screaming. It was the centre of what looked to be an elaborate alchemical circle drawn with thin red lines.

Jessamine waved her hands in front of his eyes, gently shook his shoulder, and said, “Sir?” but he was not roused from the trance. Warily, she dislodged the rune from its perch, and instantly the tailor heaved a deep breath, shaking badly. None of her words seemed to soothe him, and although he clung to her arm, she had the feeling that he didn’t even know she was there. She wished for a way to ease his suffering, and the Void responded with a feeling like bees’ wings under the Mark. She let it loose, and a melody emerged from her lips like no song she’d ever heard sung. It was whalesong made human, and it shook her bones to feel its power through her, but the dressmaker relaxed, falling into a slumber that she hoped was restful.

The tailor had been out of work for some time, it seemed. She thought she remembered it vaguely, one in an avalanche of other problems she had deemed less important than trying to stop the plague from spreading out of Dunwall or the destruction caused in the flooded district – the outfits they had commissioned for Emily’s tenth birthday ball were not coming because of the tailor’s health. She had had Maia send her well-wishes, she thought, or Maia had said she would do so… seeing Doctor Galvani’s prescription for combating arthritis, the half-finished projects poised around the studio and the ink-spills on the desk, Jessamine was reminded of a fact she should have learned by now. No matter how distant or irrelevant people’s issues seemed from the wealth and safety of Dunwall Tower, the people living them always had to deal with their problems up close.

She was looking for a clue as to why an alchemist or a witch might curse the dressmaker, but could find none, other than another reminder of Emily. The tailor had been very fond of her, and made her laugh and feel pretty whenever he measured her for a new dress. She had given him several drawings, some of dress concept ideas (and one pirate-themed outfit idea) which were all pinned up on his wall.

 _"There is magic here,”_ the Heart said darkly. _“Strange and potent, coupled with great hostility. You are in danger."_

The urgency of tone was back, but she continued to explore. If not an explanation, she needed at least to salvage an outfit, which is what she came here for. She didn’t see the appeal of window-shopping on Drapers’ Ward, especially with the Hatters and Dead Eels exchanging gunshots so frequently.

 _“That one’s for you,”_ he said, and she blinked in surprise. She moved the Heart around, and he beat slower when she swung him away, faster and glowing when she pointed him towards the mannequins covered in sheets in the corner of the studio.

She started to pull the drapings off, when she felt something grab her ankle, and twisted to see what it was. For a moment she could see nothing, but then she realised that the shadows that had gathered at the edge of the room by the tailor were reaching out, an intangible claw wrapped around her ankle. She tried to wrest her leg free, swinging her other around so that she faced the shadows. It seemed they had been hexed to hold the tailor down, but now that she had freed him, they intended to – well, she didn’t know what they intended to do. But she doubted it was good.

“What do I do?” she asked the Heart, but he summoned no answer for her. She swung her sword through the shadow, but it neglected to be sliced in two. She could get no grasp on it for her ricochet power to propel it away from her. But the shadows, hissing like snakes, flinched at the Mark, and when she finally remembered what it was that repelled shadows, she forced the glow on the back of her hand to intensify. The shadows broke, faded, and shrank against the light, and she felt, rather than saw, the magic recede from the studio.

Returning to the shrouded mannequins, she took off the sheets to reveal two outfits, one on an adult-sized female mannequin, and one on a child. The first was a two-piece suit with a black bodice, and a belt with a golden buckle shaped as two swans touching heads. The legs of the slacks and the sleeves of the jacket flared outwards in a brilliant gradient through purple and into hot pink, with butterfly sleeves trailing so long that they almost brushed the floor, and trousers that matched.

The second outfit was a dress with a shining, mint-coloured silk skirt. Its hem was bordered by matte ribbon the colour of green sea-glass, and the bodice of the dress was white with green, blue, and turquoise wave patterns sewn in. There was also a headpiece that she could see was clearly a tribute to the pirate hat Emily had drawn on her own concept art, with a huge peacock feather adorning it.

The outfits looked perfectly well-finished – the tailor must have continued to work on them after the commission was terminated. There were plain papier-mâché masks in abundance in the tailor’s cupboard. She took one, and added it to the case where she had folded the dresses as neatly as she could. As she planned where she might try and find some paints in one of the other stores in Drapers’ Ward, she left the tailor with all of the coin and valuables she had on her – what hadn’t been demanded by Piero – and a note. She was somewhat ill-practiced with writing correspondence, and thought her wording awfully clunky. It wasn’t helped by the fact that she realised as she put her pen to the page that she couldn’t remember the tailor’s name.

Dear sir,

Thank you for your hard work on these outfits. The craftsmanship is exquisite as always and we hope the goods we have left fairly compensate you for your work. If insufficient, please contact the office of Dunwall Tower for additional payment. We just know Emily will adore the pirate hat. We hope that your health keeps well.

Best wishes,  
H.I.M. Jessamine Kaldwin

“Anton,” she said, when she found him in the kennels on her return to the pub. “I need to borrow your paints.”

“Do you, now?” he said, without looking up. “I suppose you’re glad I wasted all that extra time packing, then.”

“Anton.” Clearly he was not in the business of siding with Piero in any matter, let alone one that concerned Jessamine’s testimony, but she had no patience for his snark today.

“Yes, yes. My paintbox is on the side, there. If you intend on using oils, remember that the more layers you use, the longer it will take to dry.”

She only needed two layers – the first, to make the mask crisp white all over. The second, to paint long, red drips down the face from the eyes. It was simple, elegant and, most importantly, not immediately recognisable as the mask of a wanted criminal.

Anton leaned over her shoulder as she finished and hummed, “Most uncharacteristic of the Empress to engage in satire.”

“They’ll never see it coming,” she said dryly, and he chuckled before returning to his own work. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be angry with him, and sighed. “May I ask you something?”

“You may ask me whatever you like, as always,” he said, knowing perfectly well that that was not the answer she was looking for.

“I want a truthful answer, and I don’t care if you think it will upset me.”

He gestured for her to continue.

“How did you intend your devices to be used? The walls of light, the arc pylons. The stilt walkers. What possible application did you think made it worth the risk?”

He placed his pen down on the table with a soft _click_ and sighed. “I believed that it was not my job to consider. I would discover how whale oil might be used, but what others did with that information, with the things that I created, was… not my responsibility.” He looked up at her with a severe brow and something that might have been wry if it wasn’t so grim. “Of course, then Esmond named me in his suicide note. It changed my perspective somewhat.”

She recognised an understatement when she heard it. Roseburrow’s suicide had been a shock to everybody, most of all Anton, who had believed he was becoming more secluded because he was preparing to unveil a new project. Very few knew the details of his suicide note, all of the guilt that weighed on his conscience – most of all, taking an apprentice who “ushered in a new age of violence and terror the likes of which the Empire has never seen.” Jessamine had thought it the exaggerated despair of a man in crisis when Maia had first quoted it, but the more she saw and learned of Dunwall these days…

“That’s why I have to find a cure for this plague and distribute it to every single person in this city, free of charge. I know Hiram would have wanted it restricted to his own social circle, but I will do anything I have to in order to purge the plague from this city and its people. I dread to think what kind of patent a man like Piero would put on the cure, if he were to discover it first.”

Although she was reluctant to agree with Anton on much at the moment, she had to admit that Piero’s audiographs were… troubling. The implication in one of his graphs that he had joined the Loyalists in order to request legal amnesty from the Empress – from _Emily_ – for some of his less humane studies… “But you’ve killed yet more people in your experiments,” she said, and her voice wasn’t full of anger that she thought should be there. Instead it was heartbreak, for everyone she had already failed to protect.

“A handful of lives to save millions,” he said, and it was a callous, horrible thing to say, but that was Anton Sokolov for you. “If I had waited to do things the ethical way, thousands more would die, maybe the whole city, before I found the cure.”

“You haven’t cured the plague yet, Anton,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “I will. Trust me.”

She wasn’t sure that she could, or that she wanted to. Not anymore.

At dinner, Emily and Corvo came downstairs with Callista, and everybody had to act civil. The tension was still palpable, though, and getting more uncomfortable by the second. At one point, Cecelia went to fetch a fresh bottle of wine and didn’t come back. Jessamine couldn’t blame her. Lydia was doing her best to ignore the trouble, but frequently when she started towards the booth where Jessamine was sat, Pendleton or one of the other Loyalist men (minus Samuel, who rarely ate inside the pub and was thus absent) would call her over.

When their plates were cleared, Emily tapped Corvo on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and they both shuffled out of the booth. Corvo conducted Emily to the bar counter – barely three meters from where they were sat – and lifted her up onto one of the stools.

“Excuse me,” she said, and when that didn’t capture everybody’s attention, Corvo rapped on the bartop loudly. He gestured to her as silence fell around the bar, and she said, “Thank you. I have been learning that it is part of an Empress’s duties to settle disputes that cannot be resolved in a regular court. Therefore, I have decided to practice on all of you. First of all, both sides will present their disagreement with each other. Then, I will hear the arguments both for and against each side, and come to a fair solution. To begin with, we will hear from Piero. What is your disagreement with Hana, Piero?”

Any amusement from the adults in the room at the proposition of a ten-year-old using a run-down pub as a courtroom slowly died as her speech went on, and by the time she called on Piero, he looked mortified. Martin was still grinning behind his drink, though, and Jessamine thought she saw him prod Piero in the shoulder to get him to stand up.

“I really don’t think this is necessary,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose awkwardly. “I don’t wish to turn a minor disagreement into a _spectacle_ …”

“If you don’t present a testimony in defence of your alleged actions, I will be forced to accept whatever evidence Hana presents,” Emily reminded him, and although Jessamine and Corvo were well-practiced at hiding their amusement about goings-on at court, Callista beside her had to hide her smile behind her hands, and Anton snorted.

“Well,” he said, flustered. “It’s no secret that I have a great deal of _admiration_ for Ms. Curnow. When I expressed this admiration to her, she turned me down, and I apologised for the unwanted advance, as a gentleman. Despite this, Hana has made it her business to spread slanderous rumours about my behaviour. I think it simply absurd to be eschewed for trying to pay someone a compliment.”

Jessamine was almost disbelieving at his outright dishonesty. Did he expect to be believed on the principal of decorum? A glance at Callista told her that yes, he absolutely did. As Empress, she had been subject to more than one advisor, courtier, or ambassador who thought her overly emotional or in need of a husband, but nobody expected to get away with calling her a liar to her face.

Piero straightened his jacket with finality and sat down again. All eyes turned to Hana, and she stood, clearing her throat. “I put to the court that the defendant’s statement is patently untrue. Piero’s advances to Callista were repeated and his apologies after the fact, while profuse, did not extend to a change in behaviour. Additionally, I have witnessed Piero peeking through the keyhole of the bathroom here at the Hound Pits. It was _not_ ,” she met his eyes coldly, “his first offence. It is one thing to approach a lady repeatedly after she has rejected you. It is another entirely – and I think all the gentlemen in the room will agree – to violate her privacy in order to wank yourself to sleep later.”

There was a wholly unsubtle choking noise as Martin’s drink splattered the clothes of everybody in his immediate vicinity. She thought she heard Lydia snicker, while Anton wore a shit-eating grin, and Callista had her lips pursed tightly. Martin’s shoulders shook silently in supressed laughter as Piero turned beet red. Belatedly, Jessamine remembered Emily and winced in Corvo’s direction. He simply looked amused, and Emily looked unbothered, possibly slightly confused by the reaction (but not nearly confused enough for her age, thanks to her informal “education” at the Golden Cat).

“Piero,” she prompted, “what do you say to the charges raised against you?”

Martin was doing less to hide his laughter now, and when he attempted to prod him to stand again, Piero stood so abruptly that the drinks on the table sloshed and spilled. He looked to Havelock and Pendleton, seated opposite, in a request for aid, and they said not a word.

“This is absurd,” he spluttered. As he stormed past Emily to the door, he wagged a finger at her – Corvo stepped in front – and said, “You’re not the Empress yet, you know.”

After the door swung shut, there was silence for a few moments, and then Anton raised a hand in Lydia’s direction and said, “Lydia, another round if you please, on me. Better break out something special for our judge and prosecutor, eh?”

Lydia bowed her head with a smile, “Of course.” Chatter immediately started up from the other side of the bar as the tension was broken.

Emily was frowning when she came back over to the table, and said in a quiet voice to Jessamine, “Did I do something wrong?”

She laughed. “No, dear.”

“But the dispute isn’t resolved.”

“I think it is,” she said, nodding at the Loyalist men, who were no longer throwing hostile glances to their table. Martin excused himself from the other two and made his way over. He bowed to Emily, and extended a hand for Jessamine to shake. She took it, and for a moment his smile broke free of its restraints – even when he got his mouth under control again, his eyes continued to twinkle with amusement (and, possibly, tears of laughter). He drained his drink and left it on the bartop before leaving.

Lydia returned with a bottle of grape cordial that she split between four glasses – Emily, Jessamine, Corvo, and Callista. She offered to bring various alcohols to mix it with, which Callista took her up on, and Sokolov asked for a glass of his precious brandy.

Corvo signed a suggestion to Emily, and she raised her glass and said, “A toast. To…” she thought on it. “Friends. And justice. Always speaking up when you see something wrong. And pirates.”

“And pirates,” Jessamine agreed, and they all clinked their glasses.


	10. Cold Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessamine attends the Boyle Masquerade, where she hopes to sever the main source of revenue for the Lord Regent’s regime. His mistress could be any of Lord Boyle’s three daughters, and to make matters more complicated, all three are attending the party in nearly identical dress.

After reading an adventure-romance novel when she was thirteen in which duels were an essential feature, Jessamine had bothered her father into hiring a tutor in swordsmanship for her. The man who had instructed her was not a swordsman, but a fencer, and Jessamine had given up the practice after a few months. Gristish nobles may fence and even duel with pistols, but they shouldn’t _brawl_. That was what he had said. What he had tried to teach her was another form of dancing, and while she liked to dance, she had _asked_ to swordfight. Nobody ever deigned to teach the Crown Princess how to shoot a pistol, as there was no reason she should be challenged to a duel in this way. Not when her father – or even she herself, in some instances – could have the opponent sentenced to death for the suggestion.

Lord Shaw had not been impressed with the contents of Lord Pendleton’s letter, and even less impressed with the fact that Treavor had apparently sent a _woman_ to do his dirty work, as if he thought that might dissuade him from defending his honour.

To be frank, as the guard counted down from ten and she discreetly slotted a sleep dart into her wristbow, she was inclined to want to challenge Treavor to a duel herself.

When it came time to fire, she whipped around, launched the sleep dart with her left arm raised, and fired a shot above Shaw’s head with the pistol in her right. When he went down, the guard went to him, and Jessamine flitted away before they could discover her deception. At the edge of the courtyard, she heard him say, “That’s another patron dead,” and wondered if she ought to be grateful that the City Watch was negligent to the point of ridicule.

Inside the manor, she pretended to sign the guest ledger while eavesdropping a conversation in the foyer. Everybody seemed to be formulating a plan of their own to sneak upstairs and discover which of the Boyles was which. On the upside, if she was caught up there she likely would be treated as a trespassing party guest like any other. On the downside… the wall of light guarding the main staircase didn’t bode well for their policy on trespassing party guests.

When the conversation moved on to the trouble of finding a good fashion designer in the midst of an epidemic, Jessamine turned her attention to the guest ledger itself. She recognised every name, and believed she could match some of them to the voices she was hearing already. She signed the ledger in her own name. It was calculated, not impulsive; there was always somebody who was happy to call the Boyle masquerade a pale imitation of the Fugue Feast festivities, but a particularly controversial mask – like a theatre mask streaked with red paint from the eyes, for example – was sure to cause a stir. Everyone would want to know who it was behind the mask, and signing _Jessamine Kaldwin_ in the ledger meant that everybody knew exactly who she was: a _satirist_. The thought that a member of the press had made it inside the party would be the talk of the idle class for weeks, if not months.

If she was lucky, the death of Lady Boyle at the same party would be seen as a _separate_ scandal. Audacious as the alleged satirist was, they could hardly be accused of assassination.

She mingled, overhearing several conversations about the state of the Empire, various black market trades that the nobles were involved in, and rumours about the Brimsley family worshipping the Outsider. She thought, with considerable amusement, that she ought to ask the Outsider the next time she spoke to him if the rumours had any basis in truth.

“Are you finding this game as dreadfully dull as I am?” asked a woman in a moth mask. “They’ve made it far too easy, what say you? Esme’s in white, clearly.”

Miss Adelle White was behind the mask, Jessamine judged. An extraordinarily clever woman, but she mostly used her powers of observation and reason to spread gossip. She’d put off three different engagements that Jessamine knew of, two of them her own, and although she played the tragic unwilling spinster, she had reason to suspect that Miss White had orchestrated her breakups with intent. She didn’t want to become just anybody’s wife, or perhaps a wife at all.

She had almost certainly beaten the game already, and was testing her. “And Waverly and Lydia are in red and black respectively, yes,” she agreed. She had come across each of the Ladies Boyle during the evening, and when she nodded her head to each, the Heart whispered a secret. He had not included Waverly’s name, but even if she had not had process of elimination, she recognised her _modus operandi_ when she heard it.

“Glad to hear someone else has been paying attention,” Miss White said. “I’m dying for some gossip, I don’t suppose you’ve got any going spare?”

“I did hear something interesting…” Jessamine baited. When she leaned in, Miss White did the same. “I’ve heard one of the Boyle women has a _special relationship_ with the Lord Regent.”

Miss White leaned out again in surprise, and swilled her drink thoughtfully. She lifted the bottom of her mask up to take a sip. “Well, it can’t be Lydia. She’s not pretty enough.”

“With a face like his, I’m not sure His Lordship has free pickings.”

“What a horrid thing to say,” she remarked, delighted. “But if not looks, then…?”

“What have you heard about the Tower’s finances these days?” she said, as if raising a wholly different topic of conversation.

“Oh, that is rich.” She laughed at her own wording. “Rich! Ha, do you see! Of course it’s anything but. Well, this _is_ intriguing.”

“I propose a fresh game. Which colour is the Regent’s mistress wearing tonight?”

“What splendid fun. May the best scoundrel win.”

The seeds of gossip-gathering sown, Jessamine loitered by the buffet. The presence of fresh Serkonan fruit was, she thought, particularly bold. The pig, while clearly also imported, had a certain amount of plausible deniability attached, because the farms surrounding Dunwall could theoretically have provided the meat. Likewise, the Dabovka whale meat stew, although she suspected was wholly fresh, could have been sourced from cans. But fresh fruit, in the Month of Ice, could only have come from abroad.

The docks were closed officially, which was in part why the Dead Eels were thriving, with their monopoly on river trade. She wasn’t so naïve as to think gangs would follow quarantine regulations when there was business to be had out of the plague, but any shred of optimism she might have contained was dashed by the – disappointing, but not surprising – total lack of restraint by Gristol’s noble families.

A voice with a microphone – the steward, Jessamine believed, announced, “Attention, everybody. Good evening. The Ladies Boyle would like to say a few words.”

The party guests gathered in the foyer. All three of the Boyle women were stood at the head of the room, and as they began to give their thanks to the guests, Miss White found her way to Jessamine in the crowd. “I fear this may be my doing,” she said, although she didn’t sound terribly sorry about it. “I made a somewhat clumsy mistake in asking Mrs Clemmont if she didn’t think a party organised by Lydia or Esme would include more dancing, and now…”

_Oh no,_ Jessamine prevented herself from groaning.

“But on the subject of our game,” she said, her voice more hushed, “I believe Lydia Boyle is our mistress. I hear from a reliable source that the Lord Regent loves a lady in black. He had a dress sent specially – for the unveiling at the end of the night, you understand.”

Her eyes flicked to the woman in black. “How sure are you?”

“Sure enough to call that a win, darling. Good sport.”

On the stage, to Jessamine’s despair, the Boyle in white – Waverly – finished her speech with, “So please, everyone. Find a partner, and let’s have this dance.” The band began to play a waltz.

“Excuse me,” said a man who had a dignified voice and a much less dignified mask. She wasn’t even sure what it was meant to be with its flat face, its little, turned-out ears, and skinny tongue sticking out of uneven bared teeth. Perhaps some kind of squished rat. “May I have this dance?”

Jessamine searched her surroundings for a gentleman she could claim had already asked her, or some other suitable excuse, but found none, and failed to signal Miss White for a rescue as she had already paired off with a man in a bloated whale mask. Curse the restriction of peripheral vision that masquerades demanded. She was forced to accept the gentleman’s hand, and they stepped into the waltz.

Because the evening was already well underway, many of the guests had lost their finer motor skills, knocking into other couples with clumsy footsteps and causing bouts of giggles. It brought to mind a memory from years ago – a ballroom for her birthday, or somebody’s birthday at any rate, where she had been partnered with the clumsiest of boys. He had been important – a Prince of Morley, or the heir of a Tyvian Duke perhaps. Somebody who her father thought she might have been convinced to marry. He missed steps and stepped on her toes and mumbled apologies all night, red as a beet and clammy in the hands. She distinctly remembered – this was horrible of her – she distinctly remembered breaking into a fit of giggles just like these tipsy partygoers, when her father had brought him up.

“I’m sorry, Father,” she’d said, “I’m sorry, but can you imagine the first dance at our wedding? Where he’s saying sorry to me on every off-beat?”

She thought her father had mumbled something vague about getting the young man dancing lessons in such an event, but nothing had ever come of it. Nothing had come of any of the suitors that he tried to bring to her.

Jessamine once embarrassed Corvo by asking him to dance at one of her birthday ballrooms. He had been teaching her knives for some time in secret, and they had grown closer. She had done several rounds of dancing the cotillion and other lively dances with men who she disliked, or who were boring, and she was beyond the acceptable age, at nineteen, for being allowed to ask her father or one of her ladies-in-waiting to dance with her. When the dancefloor was less full and the nobles were getting more drunk, she walked directly up to Corvo, who had stood dutifully at the edge of the ballroom for the entire night, if he would ask her for this dance.

Although he was quiet all the time, she would not describe him as shy, but his expression could have been captured by the word _demure_ when he declined. Without the flowery language of court etiquette at his disposal, he had simply looked down, drawn his shoulders in, and shaken his head. He signed _sorry_ , and there was laughter at the impropriety of it from the watching courtiers who were self-aware enough to look. It put a damper on the evening for her, and she spent some time fighting tears at the prospect that Corvo was not as much of a friend to her as she supposed, and he was only teaching her self-defence because he felt it was his duty as Lord Protector.

That night, however, once she had been undressed by her wardrobe attendants and wished a pleasant sleep by her night-maid, she had found Corvo waiting in her chambers. She remembered his silhouette against the window, out of which the sky was only just beginning to lighten in the first hint of the dawn. She apologised for embarrassing him, and he apologised for declining.

Years later, he told her that in truth he had wanted nothing more than to dance with her, and had spent much of the evening thinking about how he would like to rescue her from the dreadful partners she had been saddled with in torturous succession. That had made her laugh. He was quite eloquent when it was just the two of them.

What he managed to convey on that evening, though, when her knowledge of Serkonan Sign Language was still limited and he was still wholly mute around her, was that unfortunately, he had not the faintest idea of how to dance.

So on the nights that Corvo wasn’t teaching her how to throw knives and execute a perfect Tyvian choke-hold, Jessamine was teaching him how to dance. It was in the days before audiographs, but when she had been slightly too old for such things (so she had thought at the time) she had been gifted a music box, an automated instrument that plinked sweet music out on a winder. It wasn’t perfect, but as the months wore on Jessamine grew more aware of the fact that asking Corvo to dance publicly, especially in the modern style of waltzing that so many called _overfamiliar_ , was a scandal waiting to happen, and so they just danced for the fun of it. The pure joy of matching steps, and spinning together, and clasping hands, locking eyes, feeling another person’s breath brush against your own. It was during one of these lessons that they shared their first kiss.

It was hard not to think of him now, when she had the two-fold anonymity of a masquerade and her own death. Nobody could stop them dancing, chest to chest, arm in arm, and she would have smiled at the twinkle in his eyes and he would have known it. The intimacy of her dimly-lit chambers, or the empty ballroom still covered in sheeting and sawdust, secret and hushed, was beautiful, and she wouldn’t exchange the fond memories for any others. But there was a different kind of intimacy in a ballroom filled with people, the kind that made everybody else disappear, the kind that allowed for open secrets, and declarations of love louder than a whisper. Or at least, so she had read.

A chill ran through her as she was spun out into the ballroom’s centre, and a question was carried to her ears on the wind as her partner’s hand tugged her back in close. “Having fun?” the Outsider asked, as there was a shift in the hall, somehow at once both subtle and distinct. The colour became less vibrant, the music more far away, and… there was something else, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Of course, it wasn’t at the forefront of her mind when her partner had been suddenly replaced by the Outsider.

When his question didn’t yield an answer, he continued, “Is this how you long to spend your days? Dressing up in the latest fashions to attend parties with sophisticated people where you dance, and drink imported Tyvian wines, and spread gossip like the plague? Oh,” he feigned an apologetic tone, and smiled, “forgive me the poor choice of words.”

His hands were supernaturally cold, but the air around him shimmered and distorted like heat off a roaring fire. Ever since Anton’s observations about her so-called ‘blue blood’ she was more conscious of the sensitivity she had lost. She didn’t feel the cold so acutely any more – except where the Void was concerned. She suspected that it wasn’t cold at all, but a sensation like it, beyond mortal comprehension.

“These people are partying while the poor of Dunwall suffer and die of the plague. Every shipment of foreign wines and fresh fruits they bring in through the black market risks more of my people. I don’t wish to socialise with them any more than you do,” she told him.

“Here on business, then,” he said, his voice laced with cynicism. “What _do_ you think of Lady Boyle? She supports a tyrant, yes. Living in opulence while the people of the city starve to death and live in fear of plague, of course. But does that condemn her to death, do you think?” he mused. “I can see all her tomorrows and I know that either she dies tonight at your hand or she'll live out her days, month after month, year after year, far away, even as her fine clothes wear into tatters and her silken hair gets dull and grey. Half the city can see the lights from this party, and they dream of the delights inside. Are you going to spoil the fun, Your Majesty?”

His skin was glittering, iridescent with a thousand tiny diamonds or perhaps the scales of a fish. His eyes, though she had thought they were pure black, seemed instead to be made of a swirling black liquid encased in glass. “Where did you learn to dance?” she asked with a pleasant affectation. The Outsider’s steps were perfect, his posture controlled and deliberate. More formal, more Tyvian, than was generally found in the ballrooms of Gristol these days, but technically perfect.

He smiled, keeping his face turned over her shoulder, as was correct for this particular waltz. “When the people of the old city disappeared, they took their dances with them. And oh, how they danced. The Void would sing along to the tap of their feet, the vibrations of their music, the sound of their laughter. Dignified ladies and gentlemen, bright scholars and philosophers all yearned for me to take their hand in a dance. Now their dances are gone, and the Void sings a lonely song. One day, perhaps soon, this city will crumble too, like theirs did.” His black eyes gleamed as he faced her once again. “The thing about dancing,” he said, “is it’s all a matter of time.”

She realised what the other thing was that unsettled her about this version of the ballroom, steeped in Void. All of the other dancers, who cast no shadows or reflections on the ballroom floor, were moving perfectly. They had no misplaced steps or twirls inserted at the wrong time, no giggling or breathlessness. The couples moved mechanically, like the cogs of a huge clock face, keeping time.

Jessamine felt something like a tear rolling down her cheek, and touched it with her fingertip. It came away red.

The colour rushed back into the ballroom, the guests becoming more substantial, and the noise of the party crowding her ears all of a sudden. Had the Outsider taken her mask away? She reached to touch her face – felt the smooth surface of the oil paint. Her hands were gloved and fingers untarnished.

But the movement broke her partner’s step for the first time since he asked her to dance, and as he righted himself he took the opportunity to say into her ear, “I know who you are.” Jessamine tensed, and when he suggested they speak somewhere more private, she nodded.

The dance ended with each person bowing or curtsying to their partner. As the musicians readied themselves for the next, she watched her dance partner leave the dancefloor, and consulted the Heart.

_“He is cruel to the servant boys,”_ he said.

Then, as she was about to harden her heart against the man, he said, “ _She has no intention of returning the necklace she borrowed from Lady Oswald,”_ and _“They flaunt themselves in front of the plague. Someone should teach them that it cares not for the money in their vaults.”_ She realised that he was picking up pieces from everybody at the party, even when she looked directly at her dance partner. Perhaps he was overwhelmed. So many secrets.

Her dance partner entered the smoking room and found a window to pretend to light his pipe by. Jessamine entered slightly after and took her cigarette holder from her belt. She meandered around the room, waiting for the servant to leave with a pleasant smile before making her way over to the window to stand by him.

Without turning to face her, he said, “I’m a friend of Pendleton’s and I’ve done a few favours for your cause. I know your purpose here tonight, and – how to say this?” He cleared his throat a little, and then, as if he thought himself a romantic – or possibly tragic – hero, said, “–your target is the woman I love.” He paused a moment, for effect. Since the point of this exercise was for them to pretend they weren’t even talking to each other, she didn’t know why he expected it to land, or for her to have some kind of reaction to that.

“I swear that if you’ll bring her to me unharmed, you will never hear of her again. There’s a cellar directly below the kitchen. I’ll wait for you there. I’m not proud of this, but… surely it’s better than seeing her killed. I won’t harm her, I swear. I could never hurt Lydia. I’m a man of means. Just bring her to the cellar and I will keep her safe with me. Forever.”

He walked away, leaving her to face the window and pretend to smoke. Not a very good act, as her mask didn’t even have lips, let alone a kind of pipe-peephole in the mouth.

If he was a friend of Pendleton’s, then he was most likely a similar age, and a similar wealth bracket. They might even have attended college together, and practised firing pistols at beer bottles in their spare time. Pendleton certainly hadn’t grown out of the what-might-be-loosely-defined-as-a-sport—

Ah, Brisby. The name had been on the tip of her tongue. Jeremy Brisby? Thomas Brisby. A Brisby, at any rate.

As the Heart seemed to need a break from being asked to summon up the inner demons of every noble in Dunwall, she thought on the Outsider’s words herself. Lady Boyle would either die at her hand tonight, or spend the rest of her days far away, in what she could only assume was financial ruin. That was the only way she could conceive of a Boyle woman’s dress being in tatters. That a Boyle woman would wear a dress at all, unless they came back into fashion somehow – ever since Larisa Olaskir was Empress, it was considered more dignified for important women to wear separates.

Then again… the way that _forever_ had shivered on Brisby’s tongue. She felt a shudder go through her, and made up her mind. Lydia Boyle – her name so generously supplied by her secret admirer – may have been a parasite, but she didn’t deserve a lifetime shackled to a Brisby who claimed to love her with such vigour as to want ownership of her. Contrary to the belief of Lord Timothy Brisby ( _Timothy_ ), there were fates worse than death.

She was glad to have Lydia’s name confirmed by another source. She hadn’t been looking forward to searching through bedrooms upstairs. She knew from the Heart and Miss White that Lydia was the Boyle lady dressed in black, and she walked back to the ballroom with that in mind.

_“This was once the house of a High Overseer,”_ chimed in the Heart. _“Lydia Boyle took special care to desecrate each and every room.”_

“Well, I hope you didn’t have to see that,” she murmured to the boy.

There was a piercing sound that made Jessamine stagger. She blinked dizzily, only vaguely feeling a maid put a hand on her shoulder and ask if she was feeling alright and whether she’d like to sit down.

“You there!” exclaimed one of the guards.

She was helped to a chair and handed a glass of water, and she thanked the maid distantly. Her words were lost in the sound, but from what she could tell, nobody else could hear the racket – like a piece of slate in a grinder, making a pressure behind her eyes.

“Hey,” the guard said, and she could see her this time. She was wearing the light blue coat that denoted officers specialising in protection, but her face was more interesting – she had been on rotation at the Tower. Jessamine recognised her. Second lieutenant Collier.

“There’s nothing to worry about, officer,” said the maid. “The lady tripped on her cuff.”

“She reacted to the Overseer’s music box,” Collier said. Jessamine let her eyes focus into the rest of the hall and saw the Overseer in question. She had seen them standing at various outposts throughout the party, as still as statues. Mostly close to the stairs. They all had devices strapped to their chests – she supposed now she knew why. The horrible, discordant music must interfere with the Void’s natural harmonies.

The maid defended, “She’s just had a little too much to drink.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Collier said harshly. “Don’t you have a job to do?” Dismissed, the maid had no choice but to walk away. She didn’t want to get accused of witchcraft as well, and Jessamine was glad. She didn’t want any innocent people to get hurt tonight. “Unglove your hands, please.”

When she didn’t comply, Collier grabbed her arm, and her first instinct, other than to reach for the Mark, was to flip her sword out and run the guardsman through. She resisted, but found she had lost her strength anyway. There must have been an awful lot of the Void holding her together.

“Is there a reason you’re harassing my guests?” asked a woman in black – Lydia Boyle. Fancy that. The woman she intended to kill, coming to her rescue.

“Lady Boyle, she reacted badly to the music box,” she explained. “The Lord Regent was very clear—”

“This _isn’t_ the Lord Regent’s party, officer. It’s mine. As for the music, I think I will be complaining of a headache too if you keep that up. Stop it at once.” Although she looked like she was about to burst a blood vessel, Collier didn’t defy the lady of the house. The Overseer’s cranking stopped, and Jessamine’s head instantly felt clearer. Lydia helped her to her feet. “Come along, darling. We’ll have to find somewhere with more agreeable music.”

They went to the music room, and Lydia sat at the harpsichord immediately. Jessamine had known about her talents well before the Heart had whispered of them in her ear. Years ago, when Emily was just a tot who could sit still for nothing and no one, Lydia had played after dinner at Dunwall Tower, for some kind of anniversary. Emily had sat in her seat, enraptured, for the full ten minutes she played. Lydia’s beaming smile when she was met with applause was memorable, for some reason.

Nothing so grand happened in the music room on this occasion. Lydia played an embellished scale, then started to play something simple but pretty and said, “So sorry about that brute. They haven’t two brain cells to rub together, I’m afraid. And we asked for the smart ones.” She laughed.

Jessamine joined her. Fake laughing came as naturally to her as breathing. She had been learning ever since her father told her she ought to laugh more when politicians made jokes, and she had blinked and said, “But they aren’t funny.” This, of course, was not the point. Laughter for laughter’s sake was not to be encouraged.

“Do you play?” Lydia asked.

She had received pianoforte lessons when she was a girl. She was frequently dismayed, recently, by how much her governesses’ advice that she would regret not practicing all of the skills a young lady should have for leisure turned out to be true. As if an Empress had time to go out into the hills and shoot grouse for fun. She at least had some musical ability, but she knew she could never impress Lydia on a keyboard. “The harpsichord isn’t my instrument of choice,” she said.

“Oh? And what would you prefer?” she picked up a glass of bubbly white wine that had been left on the harpsichord. Presumably hers, but perhaps it was the part of the evening where they no longer cared whose drinks were whose.

“The harp, My Lady.”

“The harp!” she exclaimed, seeming pleased. “We have a harp in the attic. Would you like to come and find it?”

Lydia decided against taking Jessamine up the main staircase, saying that it was such a pain to get people coded into the wall of light’s system, and they would just go up the back staircase. No one would mind.

The invitation to come and find the harp turned out to be quite literal, as the attic was cluttered and most of the things in storage were covered by sheets or inside boxes. She found the harp, eventually, by moving a stack of boxes that disturbed an impressive cloud of dust. She had been worrying, in the back of her mind, that Lady Boyle expected her to shift a full-sized concert harp out of the small hatch that led into her bedroom, but it was a Morlean harp, no taller than Emily was. Still not necessarily an easy feat, but at least accomplishable.

Lydia was sitting on the bed with her glass poised in her hand. Jessamine winced – she had had a chance to poison the wine when they first came upstairs, but hadn’t taken it, perhaps out of fear that her discretion would be lacking, or perhaps because she was hesitating. She had practice at being ruthlessly-minded even when people seemed kind to her, but when she was Empress, those people had all had something to gain from her favour. As far as Lydia Boyle knew, she was a low-ranking courtier who had snuck herself onto the guest list.

She tuned the harp and tried not to dwell on it. Her doubts didn’t make the death of the Lord Regent’s sponsor any less necessary. Lest she forget, Boyle was lending part of her fortune to the tyrannical management of her Empire and downright slaughter of her people. She wasn’t blameless.

_Nor are you_ , said a critical voice somewhere in her mind, but she pushed it aside and began to play. A Maximovich piece she had favoured some years ago. She didn’t know why her fingers chose it, and was surprised to feel that she could still perform it from memory, although she hadn’t played it in some time. She had hardly played the harp at all in the months Corvo was away, partly because she barely seemed to find the time for anything so trivial, and partly because Corvo was away. Playing while alone – as alone as she ever was, in the constant presence or near-presence of her guards – in the music room always saddened her, and Emily was not a particularly appreciative audience for classical music most of the time.

When she reached an appropriate stopping point (playing the full movement of Maximovich’s concerto would have taken at least fifteen minutes), she freed her hands, and Lydia applauded.

“Oh, very good. I’m astonished we haven’t become musical rivals sooner. You have very skilled hands.”

Jessamine fought the blush rising on her cheeks on principal, although she hadn’t removed her mask. It felt deeply inappropriate to be made overtures to by a woman who she was planning to kill this evening, but more inappropriate to accept the proposition. She needed distance. “Thank you, My Lady,” she said.

She gave an amused tilt of the head. “I daresay you’ve worked out who I am.”

Without thinking, she answered, “You’re Lydia.”

There was a still moment before she removed her mask and revealed the plain (but very expertly made-up) face of Lydia Boyle. She reached up and tucked a strand of Jessamine’s hair behind her ear, her fingers brushing close to the edge of her mask. She only kept from flinching because she was making a deliberate effort to keep perfectly still. She wondered how long she could hold her breath – it didn’t seem to be straining her lungs to do so.

“Your turn,” Lydia said, with a gentle and suggestive raise of her eyebrows. “The suspense has been killing me.”

Jessamine cupped the back of Lydia’s head with her left hand and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, darling, just—"

She didn’t know what she was going to do until she did it. It was such a finely split choice between firing a bolt into Lydia’s skull and loosing a stream of Voidsong into her ears that the sound of the lullaby actually surprised her. She had no plan for what to do with Lady Boyle’s unconscious body, aside from the fact that leaving her here would make the evening a wasted effort. She supposed she would return to Samuel with her and hope she could figure it out from there.

She thought about Lord Brisby in the basement, waiting with a boat to take Lady Boyle somewhere far away. If he knew about the Loyalist conspiracy, he would be a liability, especially when slighted in his offer of “help”.

_“Lord Brisby’s estate is seldom visited. He lives a lonely life there, for he treats the staff no more as company than he does the trees,”_ offered the Heart.

“Which is another way of saying he won’t be missed,” Jessamine sighed, once again saddened by the boy’s ruthless tendencies. “He said he’s done a few favours for the cause. I don’t doubt that Martin is well-equipped with counter-blackmail for everybody who’s assisted us. No blood need be shed tonight.”

She felt the Heart shrink in disappointment, and for a bewildering moment, she felt the need to scold him, like she would Emily if she expressed visible disappointment at her birthday presents.

Jessamine put Lydia over her shoulder and exited via the balcony, not bothering to engage with the guard leaning on the balustrade. Before she jumped across to the adjacent building and into the night, she caught a glimpse of Lord Shaw, rousing himself from where he had been abandoned in the courtyard and looking rather baffled.


	11. Heavy is the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessamine makes an uneasy alliance in the aftermath of the Boyle Party.

The fireworks were quite stunning from the river. Flashes of all different colours and patterns. Fireworks that boomed, crackled, whistled. The reflections on the water made it seem almost otherworldly. She was reminded of the feeling she got when Corvo rowed them out on the river to watch the sunrise; that this was the world as she wasn’t meant to see it. A piece of time before it remembered how to appear to waking eyes, unprepared for a royal visit. From this distance, she could almost imagine that she was sailing down the river of a city without plague or poverty. Perhaps that was how the Boyles and the rest of their guests felt. Like if they could just keep drinking and laughing and watching the fireworks, they could slip into another world, far away, and never look back.

Samuel hadn’t said anything when she came back to the boat with a woman she was supposed to have killed, but he said now, “Do you want me to drop you off someplace close to the Pits, ma’am? Lord Pendleton did say he would meet us at the shore, and I’m not sure…”

_I’m not sure how pleased he’ll be to see Lydia Boyle alive._

“I think that would be best,” she agreed, grateful that he had thought of it before they were in sight of the pub. He docked in Zolana Quay and let her off with Lady Boyle on her shoulder. He took his book from where it was stowed in the skiff and gave her a two-fingered salute. “Take as long as you need, ma’am. I’ll be here.”

The quay wasn’t far from the Hound Pits. She could see the edge of Emily’s tower, parallel on the waterline. She had mapped the surrounding area as part of establishing a few escape route options, marked in her notebook where she had seen survivors and other useful information about the area. One such titbit was that Martin had a foxhole nearby, where he would base himself whenever he didn’t want to be in the pub. He did a lot more coming and going than the other two – they had people that could deliver messages, Jessamine had even seen one of them at the pub before, but Martin had his own way of doing things. He also liked to work late into the night, and it was safer to have lights on in a building out of the waterfront’s sight.

When she let herself in to the old office, he wasn’t there. Just as well. She placed Lydia down on the client’s sofa that seemed like it had only been left behind during looting because it was extremely heavy. It was hardly the luxury the Boyles were used to, but it was better quality than most of the beds at the Hound Pits.

Martin kept his documents, the ones he didn’t want Havelock and Pendleton to see, in a locked drawer at the main desk, and she opened it with a tap of her fingers to have a look. There was information about Havelock’s military career and the attempted coup, which she was eager to learn about. Piero’s feud with Sokolov was detailed extensively, and Martin took note of a semi-reliable source who claimed that the Pendleton estate was still tangled up with wills and lawyers, and likely would be for decades to come. Martin apparently knew that Corvo had come from a working background, but judging by the amount of times she had heard somebody at the pub ask if he had noble blood or a courtly education, he hadn’t passed that on.

_“Hana”_

It was written like that, with the quotation marks around it.

_No indications of presence in Dunwall before meeting_

_Skills include athletics, knives, swordplay. Limited marksmanship except knives. Can perform a Tyvian choke-hold._

_Court background – trying to hide an upper class Dunwall accent. Knows politics. Perceptive, used to winning arguments, does not defer to any authority at Pits except Emily. Seems committed to restoring the throne. ~~A Brigmore daughter?~~_

_Involvement with magic suspected but unconfirmed._

There was at once both less and more than she expected. She hadn’t thought her accent was so obvious, and she was discomfited to know that Teague had watched her training in the courtyard, although it was to be expected.

She had time to comfortably read Martin’s files and replace them in the drawer in the exact order she had found them before she heard footsteps outside. Martin let himself in, hanging up his coat in the small alcove of a porch, before he walked into the office and halted just inside the door.

“That’s my seat,” he said flatly, with an impressive display of calm considering his clear surprise at seeing her in his hideout in moment ago.

She stippled her fingers with her elbows on the table, rather enjoying the mental image it created. “Do you have means by which I might transport a person – unharmed – to a safe location?” she asked.

“Why’s that?” he frowned.

She gestured to Lady Boyle on the client couch, unmasked and dishevelled but still in her evening finery.

“Outsider’s blue balls, Hana,” he said, and looked back at her. His tone was flat as ever despite the expressive words. “What the fuck.”

“You know the importance of political allies,” she said, calling back to their conversation about Sokolov.

He crossed his arms. “Yes, I do, but what on earth makes you think Boyle would want to form an allegiance against the Lord Regent? She was sending him money – no blackmail or coercion. Believe me, I checked. It’s possible she even provided the coin for the original assassination against the Empress.”

“No. She didn’t have all the facts and nor do you.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t know that Hiram kidnapped Emily. And you don’t know that the venerable Lord Boyle virtually put Emperor Euhorn on the throne.”

She could see the cogs whirring behind his eyes. Revaluating strategies, coming to conclusions, fitting everything around that new information. Neither of them were deluded that nobles had any real sense of loyalty, but they had an image to uphold. The Boyles were people of influence who once used that influence to put the son of Andre Kaldwin on the throne. Going to bed with the man who killed Andre’s granddaughter would disrespect Lady Boyle’s late father, and nobody wanted to do that. “How you do know that?” Martin asked.

“I told you I wanted to understand the lines of power in this city. I didn’t say I was going to get all my information from you.”

He conceded that truthful but vague point and didn’t press the issue further. “I take it from the fact that you’ve ambushed me here – very good technique on the break-in, by the way – that you would rather keep Lady Boyle’s cooperation from our friends at the Hound Pits.”

“I would. I trust I can count on you to do the same. After all, _certain_ information,” she leaned slightly on her hands, “is best used in moderation.” Not an outright admission that she knew about his files, but a suggestion that she had something on him that he wouldn’t like to get out, either.

“Well played,” he nodded. “I’ll contact my people, they can arrange a route. It won’t be the first-class railcar the Boyles are used to – almost it will be the opposite – but it’ll get her where she needs to be until the time is right.”

“Safely,” she added.

“You have my word.”

She gave him a look. His word as an Overseer or a man of faith didn’t mean much to her. She had seen too much of what the Abbey got up to to trust any of the Order at their word, let alone Martin.

Seeing her scepticism, he placed his hand over his heart and said, “Throw me back in the stocks if I tell a lie. Lady Boyle will remain safe for the duration, I’ll stake my tongue on it.”

His honour, she’d have doubted. His life, she’d have paused. But to stake his tongue, his greatest source of personal power, was significant. He wouldn’t have said it unless he knew without a doubt that he was speaking the truth. Their agreement reached, he picked something from his stash of valuable goods, presumably to pay his contacts with, and took his leave from the hideout once again. She had certainly made more work for him, but she wouldn’t have liked to try and arrange Lydia’s transport herself. Not with the Heart’s words still ringing in the back of her mind.

_"They ship them in from farming villages, bastard daughters and extra mouths that can't be fed. They thought they would be working in a factory. By the time they arrive it's much too late."_

Jessamine was glad she was wearing her mask when Lydia Boyle woke looking like she was about to send the maid back to the kitchen to demand a different breakfast. What fresh irritation to wake up drugged and abducted in a crumbling office of the Old Port District. As she sat up on the couch, she saw Hana’s mask across the desk. “It’s you. The masked maniac that’s been taking people out in the city. Campbell, Sokolov, the Pendletons. Now me,” she said bitterly. Jessamine thought she might even begin to laugh in a moment.

“I simply want to tell you a little about the man you’ve been sleeping with,” she said, and straightened a paperweight – a tiny white whale encased in glass – on the desk. “As you know, Princess Emily was abducted seven months ago. What I hope you don’t know – for your sake – is that His Lordship has known her location the entire time. He arranged her kidnapping, and planned to ‘find’ her once her was secure as Regent, and Corvo Attano had been unjustly executed for the Empress’s murder.”

Her expression hadn’t changed from stone-faced dissatisfaction, but that didn’t say much. “I suppose you think, if Hiram made those arrangements for Emily, that he had something to do with the Empress’s assassination as well.”

“Yes. I do.”

She scoffed. “I see. And I suppose you think that a few nasty rumours will be enough to sway my loyalty. You’re going to tell me now that you have removed the Princess from Hiram’s playing board, and you intend to crown her in his place. He might not be leading a golden age, but do you honestly think a ten-year-old will be a better choice?”

All nobles were well-versed in the history of child emperors and empresses. Emperors Aneirin and Ailish Rhydderch had had a very famous tragedy written about them. “Allow me to clear something up. Emily will not be taking the throne.” Jessamine reached up and removed her mask, and finished forcefully, “I will be taking it back.”

Lydia paled and hastily bowed her head. “Your Majesty…”

It was a convenient way to hide her face, but Jessamine could practically feel the heat of Lydia’s blush from across the desk. They were definitely both thinking about their conversation in her bedroom. “It’s alright, Lydia, I won’t tell anyone about your affections,” a curl of her lips working its way into her tone. Jessamine thought she might have made quite a career out of satire, if she hadn’t been an Empress.

“I most humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“I don’t need your apologies, I need your co-operation. You were funding Hiram and I needed you out of the way, but that’s not all I need from you. You have influence in the noble circles of Gristol, you set trends and fashions as a matter of habit. Now you will be doing that in service of your country. To top it off, you are going to be the second Boyle in as many generations to put a Kaldwin on the throne. How does that sound?”

Lydia raised her eyes to look at her, although her head was still mostly bowed. She said, “It sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

Jessamine missed Peri and Sara once she was back at the Hound Pits. She thought she probably would have given a great deal to be undressed by experienced and gentle hands, rather than her own clumsy fingers struggling with clasps. She winced as the gorgeous fabric of the outfit collected dust from the floor, knowing that her dressers would not have been so careless. She took her hair free of its bands and combed her fingers through it with a sigh.

She heard a noise from the adjacent room. Though it was little more than a breathy grunt, she recognised what it was trying to convey: _Jessamine, is that you?_

When she came to the doorway connecting the two rooms, she saw that Corvo was sitting up in bed. “I was trying not to wake you,” she whispered apologetically, and he shook his head. She took her candle over and placed it on the desk so that he might communicate with her better, and sat down on the end of the bed.

“How was the party?” he signed, and brushed her hair behind her ear. The gesture wasn’t uncommon between them, but it put a lump in her throat as she remembered Lydia doing the same thing.

Seeing her discomfort, he started to withdraw his hand, but she caught it with hers and let them rest on the mattress together with her hand hooked into his like a gentleman helping a lady from a carriage. She watched as her thumb stroked his knuckles and she worked up the courage to say out loud, “I almost killed Lady Boyle tonight.”

With his free hand, Corvo lifted her chin so that she looked into his eyes. He was open, understanding. He was ready to listen. So she told him about the party in all its decadence. She told him about the Boyle family funding the Lord Regent and explained in a great amount of detail all the favours they had done the cause by removing her from his circle. The Boyles were smart people – if Esme and Waverly knew anything about Lydia’s affair with Hiram (and they must), they would be able to deduce that if either of them continued their support of the Lord Regent, they would meet the same fate as their sister. Rumours would spread, and if Burrows attempted to approach any other family for financial help, they would not be eager to accept. Without Campbell and his book, he likely couldn’t blackmail them into it, either. Without a steady stream of coin, there would be no more bribe money for the Watch and the Royal Guard, or even the few Overseers that hadn’t withdrawn their support when Martin had Yul Khulan appointed High Overseer.

She told him how she had justified it all to herself, how she had been convinced of that course of action until the moment she put Lydia to sleep.

He signed, “You did not kill Boyle. Do not repent as if you have.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “The crown does not fit any Empress in death,” she said. Paraphrased from an old Morley saying about kings. Time passed and things changed. Monarchs died. People should certainly mourn, but trying to cling to the past did no-one any good. Certainly not the corpses of kings or empresses. Of course, her use was more literal.

“It does not fit a child, either,” he reminded her, and when she winced, he looked apologetic although he had not misspoken and would not take back the words even if he could.

Jessamine had to take the throne, or it would be passed to Emily. Even if she ruled well at her age, it would take too much from her. And running away altogether… she wouldn’t lie and say it hadn’t crossed her mind; that they could take a ship and sail far away, on the adventure that Emily had always dreamed of. But Dunwall would haunt her. All the people she could have helped, could have saved if she had not abandoned them. They needed her. So she had to stay and save as many of them as she could, as she told Hiram all that time ago in the Month of Earth.

“And you are not so dead,” signed Corvo with a smile. He leaned in and their lips touched.

She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over his stubble, and as they kissed she felt some warmth seep into her. She hadn’t been truly bothered by the cold since she returned to life, but this was the first time she had noticed _warmth_. It was more pleasant and more human than she had remembered.

They broke the kiss but their faces stayed close together for another moment, before he drew back enough that she could easily watch his hands. “You act with kindness in your heart. Kindness is easy when you have everything. It is harder when you are scared. For your people. For your family. For yourself.” He paused his signing to kiss her again, short this time. “Soon we will be home. The crown will not feel so heavy when you have your ladies at your side.”

When the sun was up, she went down to the courtyard and was stopped by Wallace, who said, “I trust you enjoyed the Boyles’ hospitality. Lord Pendleton is anxious to see you. I believe he is taking his morning refreshment.” He gestured to the second floor of the brewery. It was a very formally-worded suggestion considering that Wallace had undoubtedly been the one to have to drag a comfortable chair to the balcony in the first place.

“Lord Pendleton,” she said, when she approached.

He didn’t stand. “Ah, Hana. What a glorious morning it is. We’ve done away with a woman, and a noblewoman at that, that puts us one step closer to taking down the Lord Regent. Don’t worry. Boyle was a viper. I don’t feel a thing for her. Me and the Empire both will be better off without her – it’s almost a pity we couldn’t dispose of the whole venomous lot of them. How was Lord Shaw?”

She wanted to make a remark about his contempt for the Boyles, but she knew he wouldn’t listen, and it wasn’t why she was here. “Lord Pendleton, I am, as you know, at the Loyalists’ disposal as a courier for tasks that pertain to our business here. However, I would rather be kept out of personal matters, and if you had been upfront with me about the matter with Lord Shaw, I would have informed you of as much before agreeing to take your missive to him. And—” she cut him off, as he seemed about to interrupt, “I strongly advise that the next time you wish to start a fight with someone – for what I am given to understand was a wholly petty matter in this instance – that you do your own damn dirty work.”

He fidgeted in his seat. “Um…” seeming to be suffering from a dry throat, he coughed into his fist and fiddled with the cap on his flask. “So Lord Shaw is…?”

“Greatly humiliated and mildly hypothermic, I imagine,” she finished.

“I see,” he said. “For your trouble, then—” he produced a rune from inside his jacket. She might have found it intriguing that he referred to it as a token that had served his family well, considering it was no lucky bone charm, and runes were widely believed to curse any holder that the Outsider didn’t approve of; but she knew the trick well. Implying your gift had a great personal value, when often it was brand new and specifically commissioned for the purpose of gifting it. It was a tactic people had used on her long before she was Empress, in an attempt to get into her good graces. Every year Maia had somebody check up on each of the stories people gave to see which were even close to truthful.

Corvo had gifted her a folding stiletto knife for her twenty-third birthday. He had bought it second-hand from a pawn shop, and the pearl handle had a small nick taken out of it, seemingly where a different blade had cut into it. It was the most special gift she had ever received.

That afternoon, Wallace found her and gave her a note, saying that it had been delivered for her by one of their couriers. “There is also a package. I can have it taken up to your chambers,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Leave it in the courtyard.” At his visible confusion, she told him that Lord Attano should not be disturbed on her account, and this explained it for him although it wasn’t the true reason she declined his offer. The note that had been left with Wallace was vague and ominous, the kind of thing that would have her security detail on high alert for the remainder of the day ordinarily. It was written with bad handwriting and worse spelling, which could be down to the fact it had been written by a courier, who were not actually required to be literate for their job most of the time. It could also be an attempt to mask the handwriting of a potential enemy. If she must open a letter bomb, let it be away from Corvo and Emily.

When she eventually did get around to it, she discovered that the package was a rune, and attached was a note in much more legible handwriting. Not the personal hand of any Boyle, but it was undoubtedly dictated to a trusted secretary by Waverly. Jessamine wondered what Lydia would say if she knew that her sister had sent a thank-you to the assassin responsible for her disappearance, although truthfully it came across more as an attempt to assuage Waverly’s personal paranoia that she was going to be next.

“That’s it, son. You’re a natural.”

Hearing two sets of footsteps on their way down, Jessamine rested her hands on the newel of the staircase and peered around. Samuel spent very little time in the bar of the pub, and even less on the upper levels, so she was immediately intrigued at the sound of his voice on the stairs. It turned to pleasant surprise when Corvo came into view, concentrating on the pattern of footwork that his new cane demanded.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she greeted.

“Same to you, ma’am,” Samuel replied cheerily, and Corvo flashed her a smile, seeing as his hands were otherwise occupied – his right on the cane, and his left on the wall for extra balance. “Piero came up with Lord Corvo’s cane a little while ago and I thought I’d give him a few pointers. This old thing didn’t half give me grief when I first got it.” He tapped his leg with his finger.

“You have a wooden leg?” she said, and realised about halfway through saying it that it was extremely rude of her.

Before she could begin her apology, he laughed, and was already shaking his head and waving it off. “I do indeed.”

“Does Emily know? She’ll be asking you if it was eaten by a sea monster.”

He shrugged, “Perhaps it was. I should like to tell the story to an appreciative audience – uh, with your permission, of course.” He looked between both Corvo and Jessamine when he added the last part, and she liked him all the more for it. When Corvo reached the final step, Samuel clapped him on the back and said, “Well done! Now we’ll have a nice break in the bar, and when we’re ready we’ll try going up, eh?”

Jessamine and Corvo took their seats in a booth while Samuel fetched them some drinks. Corvo puffed his cheeks out with a sigh, and Jessamine tilted her head where it was resting on her hand. “That bad?”

He signed, “No walking and talking. Thinking of the future.”

He made a good point. With the kind of schedules they were used to at the Tower, they did a lot of their communicating on-the-go. With one of Corvo’s hands busy and the other still not as dextrous as it once was, it would limit what he was able to say massively. Even if he learned an adapted version of sign language for one hand, they would _both_ have to learn it for it to be any good. Or have Cosme learn it, and resign themselves to having them follow the two of them around daily, which she was sure _none_ of them wanted.

“Perhaps once it’s improved a little, we could look into getting some sort of… leg brace. To free up your hands,” she suggested.

He didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway. Samuel approached with the drinks, “Now, Hana, ain’t Lord Corvo’s new cane an impressive piece of craftsmanship? Piero really outdid himself.”

“May I?”

Corvo picked up his cane from where he had propped it against the booth and pushed a button – it retreated inside the top third, just like her sword – before handing it over the table. It was lightweight, sturdy, and the handle was carved into the shape of a raven’s skull, though not to the detriment of the grip. Jessamine thought she was probably correct in her idea that Piero was incapable of handing over anything he made that he thought didn’t look gothic enough.

When they finished their drinks and climbed the stairs again, Corvo seemed relieved to be able to sit back down on his bed – and found that while they had been downstairs, Lydia had changed the sheets for him.

Samuel had bid them both a good afternoon only a few minutes before Emily came tearing across the walkway and launched herself into the room in a surprising flurry of sea tones. “Look!” she said, holding the skirt out, “It’s the dress you got for me!” She twirled, and the pattern really did look like the shifting sea when it moved together like that. She gasped. “Is that a sword?”

“It’s a cane,” Corvo signed. “To help my leg.”

“Oh,” she peered at it. “Can I see?”

He handed her the cane, and she deployed it to its full length, then brandished it at both of them. “I am the dreaded pirate Queen Magpie, and you will turn out your pockets or I will call forth a mighty storm to sink your ship this instant!”

As they pretended to turn out their pockets, Jessamine leaned over to Corvo and murmured, “A pirate, a queen, a highwaywoman and a witch all at once. Our daughter is quite ambitious.” He grinned.

Corvo put on the better show, pulling out lint and spare buttons and bottle caps and pencils, almost but not quite letting slip a single gold coin. Emily demanded he turn over his gold, pointing at the pocket where he had hidden it, and he would turn out his pocket to reveal nothing there. He continued like this, acting confused when she kept insisting that he had gold on his person, when he at last reached behind her ear and produced the coin as if it had been there all along.

While Emily played, it became clear that the dress didn’t quite fit her; the shoulders kept slipping down her arms. After her game was interrupted by the conjunction of both the dress’s shoulders falling down and her hair getting in her eyes, she made a noise of frustration and Corvo beckoned her over. As had already been demonstrated, he had needle and thread in his pockets, and he held his pins between his lips as he began moving and folding the fabric.

When he had his improvised measurements, he indicated Jessamine and she made the trip across to Emily’s tower to find her a change of clothes. She found Callista there, who apparently had been promised that Emily would be back after “just a moment” but was resigned to letting her play until dinnertime once she heard the loud declaration that the Magpie Queen was robbing the cruise ship passengers of all their valuables. The Heart had already divulged Callista’s own ambitions, though, so Jessamine suspected that secretly she didn’t mind Emily’s skulduggery.

She tutted when she crossed the walkway again. “The Magpie Queen can’t just go prancing around in her undergarments, you know,” she said, and Emily wriggled into her clothes with a grin.

“When will it be finished?” Emily asked Corvo, who was wasting no time getting to work on the dress. “And—if there’s any fabric left over, could you make a dress for Mrs. Pilsen? Mr. Keating does that sometimes, and I want her to have a present when we go back to Dunwall Tower.”

“No free hands, darling,” Jessamine reminded her, even as she mentally repeated the tailor’s name to herself several times so she wouldn’t forget it again. “And you don’t want Corvo to put down his work just to tell you how much longer he’ll be, do you? If you keep doing that it won’t be done before the Month of Songs. You’ll just have to be patient.”

“Very well,” she sighed. She spent the rest of the hour until dinner asking Jessamine if she had ever seen spooky lights out on the river, or monsters moving underneath the surface of the water. She told a story about one of the deep ones who became lost off the shore of Wei-Ghon and asked a kind old fisherman for help. She tried to remember where she’d got it from.

As predicted, the finances of the Tower went under once Lady Boyle was removed. There was no money coming in from the Boyles, no direct line of elixir from Anton or maintenance and upgrades of the security systems installed throughout the Tower. Treavor was fulfilling his purpose of disrupting the court dynamics and tying all of Hiram’s proposed legislation and initiatives in knots. It would be a waiting game for a while, until his defences were whittled down enough to strike, so Jessamine asked Martin to make sure that any of the household staff who lost their jobs as a result were provided for. She couldn’t trust him nearly as much as Maia, but he was efficient, and wary as she was, it did seem to her that he was dedicated to creating a better Dunwall.

One early morning before the sun was peeking over the horizon, Emily snuck from her tower and across the walkway to Corvo’s room. He reacted to her cold feet and the cool fabric of her summer-suit-turned-night-clothes as she edged onto the mattress next to him, but curled around her protectively in his sleep nonetheless. Jessamine had been reading in the corner of the room when she saw this unfold.

She helped Cecelia bring the breakfast trays upstairs when it was ready. It was hot and fresh – a new delivery of food had arrived that morning, which included the items that Martin ordered for the pre-coronation party he was planning for the Hound Pits (Jessamine had told him that perhaps it was a little early to count his chickens as it were, but he said he was prepared to turn it into whatever kind of party was required in the moment. Calling it a pre-coronation party was simply optimism on his part). When they got upstairs, Corvo had started to stir, and gave them both a sleepy smile when they entered with as much discretion as they could manage.

“Lady Emily,” Jessamine said softly, as the most gentle of maidservants at the Tower used to rouse her when she was a princess. “It’s time to begin the day.”

“Mmf,” she mumbled, tucking herself further into Corvo’s chest, and resisting his attempt to sit up. He grinned at Jessamine, seeing what tactic she was about to employ.

“What a shame,” she sighed. “All of these fresh, warm blueberry pancakes and honey will go to waste… Not to mention the hot chocolate Cecelia has kindly prepared to dip them in.”

Emily twisted around, bleary eyes wide over her shoulder at the mention of pancakes and hot chocolate. She was awake and alert in record time, and Corvo followed her shortly. He wasn’t ready for the rich sweets that Emily craved yet, not with how he had been eating at Coldridge and even before, on his voyage around the Isles. Cecelia, who was used to bringing supper out for Samuel without him remembering to ask, had prepared Corvo some lightly buttered toast and an Izrese blend of tea – not spiced like Serkonan tea. She was a very thoughtful young lady.

It wasn’t a typical Dunwall Tower breakfast, but it did take on the feeling of the picnics that they would take together while at the country house in Driscol. When Corvo pretended to try and steal something off Emily’s plate, they inevitably began to duel with the cutlery.

“You’ll never take this breakfast!” she declared, brandishing her fork as a swashbuckler brandishes a sword. Callista, who had joined them as soon as she woke to find that Emily had vanished from the tower, only rolled her eyes a little.

Corvo hoisted his butter knife expressively. _En garde!_

The Heart trembled in her pocket. _“She remembers the picnics they used to take in the country with Uncle Cyril, and how she used to make him smile.”_

Jessamine frowned. Cyril may have been at one or two of their picnics when Emily was a baby, as he had remained in Dunwall Tower after Euhorn died. He had always called Jessamine his favourite niece, although correctly they were first cousins once removed. As the former Lord Protector, it might have been reasonable to expect that Cyril and Corvo did not get along, but in truth she thought they had considered each other friends. Corvo had still been young, and he found Cyril’s impromptu lessons and pointers helpful rather than condescending, especially in Dunwall where so few aristocrats showed him any kindness in the beginning. She missed Uncle Cyril dearly, but she doubted that Emily even remembered him – and she was even less his niece than Jessamine was.

Was the Heart getting muddled? Or was – for the first time – he talking about _Jessamine’s_ memories? In the whole time she’d had the Heart, he had made not a single observation about her, despite her questioning. Why now?

Perhaps he was simply confused. A young Princess and the Royal Protector who doted on her – she supposed that Corvo and Emily might resemble Cyril and her, in his eyes.

She wondered what would happen to the Heart when this was over. Would he be with her, not quite belonging to this world for every council meeting, masquerade, and family picnic to come? She hoped not. If it was her, forced to exist on the edge of someone else’s life for the rest of their days, she thought she would go quite mad.


	12. Swan Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that remains of the Loyalists’ campaign is to depose the tyrannical Lord Regent and retake the throne. Jessamine infiltrates her home to exact justice, and is reminded of what it means to be an Empress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: scars, recollections of graphic violence and torture, references to disordered eating

As Corvo finished tying her hair up in preparation for the return to Dunwall Tower, Jessamine gestured to the piece of darning that he had put down on the side table before he began and said, “Oh, so Lydia will let _you_ help with chores.” She shifted herself on the bed so that she and Corvo could face each other.

He tapped a finger to his lips conspiratorially and then signed a double C: “Cecelia requested my help.” That at least explained why Emily had begun calling Cecelia ‘Cece’.

“Earlier I tried to help with the laundry and Lydia nearly beat me out of the room with an ironing board.”

Corvo laughed. “Don’t mess with the Mistress’s laundry. Leanne—” here he made an L and then gestured the shape of the tidy bun in which her hair was always pinned “—would have maimed you.”

She had to allow the truth of that statement – but at least to the Mistress of House at Dunwall Tower, Jessamine was an Empress. Here she was little more than a street thug Martin had dragged into their coalition.

She helped Corvo apply the antibiotic cream that Anton prescribed and cover the red, blistered burn on his collar with a fresh dressing. He was patient and quiet while she did it, and Jessamine tried not to think of all the new scars she couldn’t see, knowing that he wouldn’t want her to dwell on it. She used to know all of his scars by heart, could find them in the dark with gentle fingers. Now there was hardly an inch of him unscarred. There were the brightly-coloured bruises, the burns, the broken bones, the pulled nails. Even the migraines and the damaged larynx, she could see in his need for darkness and winces when he tried to use his voice unthinkingly. But there was more than that. Things she couldn’t tell from just looking.

On his second night at the Pits, when Corvo had begun retching in the dark attic and she almost woke the whole pub in a panic, he grabbed her hand and stayed her until he could tell her, shaking, what was wrong. His hunger strike in Coldridge had been gruelling, but the force feeding – that was worse. He’d managed to hold his food down in front of Emily, but it didn’t stay that way. Corvo woke in bouts of confusion with short breaths, unused to uninterrupted sleep and plagued by nightmares that took new inspiration from his incarceration, on top of the day she died. He hadn’t had an easy life before, but the horrors he had experienced in the last eight months…

He put his hand to her abdomen, where the scar stretched long and ragged and pale. Daud had been rough with her, letting the blade tear outwards on its way out, widening the wound. Corvo intended to say that he was not the only one with scars, and she would not argue with him, although with her last thought she had felt only his eyes on hers, his hands cradling her body, and his heart, sure in the belief that he would find their daughter. She had been carried to the Void with _I love you_ just short of her lips, while he endured.

The briefing before her return to the Tower was as well-rehearsed as ever. “One man, one beating heart, is all that’s left of the forces that brought this city to the brink of ruin,” Havelock said.

Jessamine wasn’t so sure about that. She wasn’t trying to take away any of the blame that Hiram rightfully deserved, but he was obsessed with order. Whatever other crimes he may have been accused of, he did not want the gangs running rampant as they were. She would wager that he did not even want the noble families breaking quarantine to import goods from the other isles. Hiram was certainly the head of this serpent, but she had to wonder, as Samuel pulled the _Amaranth_ close to Dunwall Tower’s water lock, if two more wouldn’t grow back in its place when she cut it off.

She would have to do something about the water lock roof, she thought, eyeing the gazebo in the same fashion that she imagined Daud doing almost eight months ago. It was too easy to walk across the top and hide behind the balustrades.

There was a plaque in the place where she had died. For the first time she wondered about her funeral parade. It must have been bleak, with everyone required to stay inside their homes. She wondered if stilt-walkers had flanked the carriages to keep the rats away, and thought of her body being lowered into the Kaldwin crypt, along with Mother and Father, Cyril and the baby who was not named Johannes.

Had the Outsider just plucked Jessamine right out of her casket, or had she pushed her way out? The thought that among the many crimes that the Phantom of Dunwall was wanted for, there was also a reward out for the person who vandalised the Empress’s grave, was quite funny. Treason, theft, conspiracy, kidnapping – why not vandalism, too? Speaking of vandalism…

_What on Earth have you done to my house._

The scaffolding throughout the grounds was bad. The ramshackle tower Hiram appeared to have affixed to the roof of the castle was worse. The statue of His Lordship Hiram Burrows in the centre of the courtyard was atrocious, and she felt for poor Henrich the gardener, whose gorgeous flower bed had been ripped up for its placement. Jessamine wondered if ‘the boldest measures are the safest’ had actually, all this time, been Hiram’s justification for rolling out the red drapery in place of the Imperial blue. It was indeed a bold move to choose the Olaskirs’ signature red and black eagle as his emblem in place of the blue and gold swan, especially since he was allegedly only standing in as Regent until Emily could be found.

Whenever a new Lord Protector was to be chosen, the tournament held for the candidates was a national event, held in the Dunwall Tower grounds which were opened for the occasion. It was not the Blade Verbena held every year in Serkonos, nor was it the fencing matches she had been audience to when her father tried to sate her desire for swashbuckling with the blunt blades and unnatural footsteps of fencing. What the Tournament for the Lord Protector was, therefore, was _exciting_.

The actual tournament was mostly for show; the winner need not be given the honour of the position at stake, although appointing the loser of the competition would be widely regarded as both idiotic and a show of blatant favouritism to the losing house. A formal dinner was held at which each of the candidates were present, and introductions made to the monarch-to-be. The Royal Protector had to be not only adept with a sword and pistol, but knowledgeable of the court. And – although some regarded this as a less important element – they had to have good rapport with the person they were supposed to protect.

Cyril believed the latter to be (if not the most important) at least important as the other aspects of being a bodyguard. As Euhorn’s cousin, he had been chosen as the first Protector of the Kaldwin dynasty because – as the Spymaster at the time had said – it was difficult to know whom to trust when one has come suddenly and unexpectedly into a position of great power and influence. The Kaldwin boys, Euhorn and Isadore, had grown up closely with Cyril, and although the tournament and accompanying ceremony had been performed as always, it had been no secret in the court who the new Emperor would choose.

By contrast, the Isles were abuzz with speculation of who Jessamine would choose as her Protector. Many of the noble families of Gristol had sent their second or third children to the event, and spent the run-up to the competition trying to butter Her Highness up. She was only twelve, but she knew not to be swayed by pretty gifts or kind words.

There was a banquet after the tournament was over, apparently to honour the winner, a young man named Corvo Attano. There was no denying that his duel with Charles Ramsey had been one for the ages, no matter how many people scoffed at the Lord Ramsey’s son losing to a Serkonan commoner.

Her father favoured Ramsey based on his swordsmanship merits, and his well-spoken manner, and the fact that he was considering bringing the Ramsey family closer to the throne politically (and if Jessamine wouldn’t _marry_ one of the boys…). She and Cyril both agreed that Ramsey had been pandering too much in his performance. He spent more time soaking up the cheers and grinning at the Royal box than paying attention to what his opponent was doing, which almost cost him the round more than once and was finally his downfall.

Attano’s Captain in the Guard had signed him up for the competition. Not a kind gesture; as she understood it, the Captain had intended for the young man to be humiliated out of his unofficial title as the best swordsman in the Empire, which the Verbena had given him boasting rights to. Jessamine never heard of Attano bragging about the title himself, merely others interpreting his actions in that way. She thought the idea of a Serkonan thinking he could be Royal Protector was supposed to be funny, but she wasn’t laughing. Not when he fought like _that_.

He had made it to the final round of the tournament without any of Ramsey’s theatrics – the twirl of his sword in his hand was not a power-play or a party trick, merely a reflex from years of fighting. During the whole tournament, Attano had only looked to the Royal viewing box once, immediately before the bell rang for its beginning. She counted that in his favour.

Unfortunately, Father and Spymaster Asquith were against Attano. Further unfortunately, they had a point when they mentioned that Attano had utterly failed to pass the test of the welcome dinner. He had spoken to no one, demonstrated no knowledge of the court or (Asquith crinkled his nose) _its manners_. Jessamine liked that about him, liked that he had no political agenda. With Attano, she didn’t have to watch out for the kind of silver-tongued flattery, and name-dropping, and hidden allegiances that she had come to expect from everybody at court. It was refreshing, that he was unconnected and disinclined from trying to sway her opinions this way and that.

“Perhaps he was simply out of his depth,” Cyril suggested, when Jessamine looked to him for support. Her father looked exasperated at his intervention. “It was the first night, after all,” he continued, “and normally he would be asked to protect these people, not dine with them.”

Next, “He’s far too young.”

This was deemed an unfair criticism, as Attano was only two years younger than Ramsey (although this turned out not to be quite true, since Attano had lied about his age in order to enter the Blade Verbena two years previously) and in any case had more experience in guardsmanship than all of the Ramsey boys put together.

“The man doesn’t _speak_ , Jessie,” Father said.

Cyril remarked, “Neither do I, if your constant failure to heed my advice is to be believed."

However, the argument continued, and Jessamine was worn down – eventually – into choosing a more “suitable” candidate. Her new ladies-in-waiting helped, as they had also been watching the tournament and the banquet carefully. Florence had very extensive notes, while Tuney made her judgements based on the conversation she had managed to make with the candidates. They had been Jessamine’s close friends for years, but it was now that their positions became formalised in Dunwall Tower.

Third prize had gone to Alistair Inchmouth, and he seemed to be a very good swordsman with the virtues of an adolescence spent in court. He was decorous, dutiful, and deserving. That was the Spymaster’s verdict, which he gave in approval of her choice ahead of the ceremony. When Jessamine stood on a stage in this courtyard to announce who her Royal Protector would be, she began with the intention to say Alistair Inchmouth’s name. Instead, she named Corvo Attano.

The hideous metal scaffolding that spoiled the grounds was also a substantial security risk, as it made it extremely easy to navigate the courtyard undetected. She remembered that being a concern when the stage had been set up for the tournament, although that one had been much easier on the eyes. The route she had taken in the past to sneak in and out of the grounds was much longer than the paths that had opened up to her now, and it wasn’t just because she had the Outsider’s gifts at her disposal. Most of Hiram’s guards were concentrated at the Tower’s auxiliary entrance, from which people came and went without ceremony. The huge front doors were closed and secure, and although she was curious as to whether her skeleton key power would have any effect on it, she would have been foolish to attempt it. That left finding an open window – unlikely in the Month of Hearths, even if the weather was slowly improving – or entering via the servants’ door.

There was one guard posted at the loading bay where a delivery of fresh food was brought in every morning, when times were a little less extraordinary. She caught him mid-yawn. Nobody noticed when she slipped inside the pantry – the kitchen was buzzing with activity, rushing to fill the dinner order. This was the usual pace things were taken at, she thought, but there was a little less life in the room. She had once heard Chef Boucher speak passionately on the importance of fresh meat, fresh vegetables, fresh herbs, all things fresh as could be.

“Keep _you_ nice and fresh, yes?” he had said to Emily. She had asked incredulously if he was planning on making her into a soup.

But now things were different. Most of the stock in the pantry was canned or dried. There was no smell of fresh bread wafting through the air, and no sugary treats waiting to be pinched from cooling racks.

“Eric!”

“Yes!” Eric said, in an _I’m getting to it!_ kind of way, depositing his armful of dishes into the sink and turning around to be an extra pair of hands for the sous chef.

When the servers, Gilroy and a girl she didn’t know, filled their arms with trays, they headed into the servants’ passage. Jessamine followed the servers at a distance, not wanting to rope in anybody if she didn’t have to. Gilroy was a sweet young man who had been unspeakably shy when he first started, and she remembered on one occasion his hands had shaken badly when he tried to pour her water from his jug (the only task he had had at the time). When he had disappeared the next evening, she had asked Leticia if he was alright, and he had reappeared after that with a little more confidence. She was oddly proud to see him balancing two trays laden with dishes with ease, but she didn’t want to give him any cause for alarm. And the servant with him, Jessamine didn’t know.

She had best be careful – she had overheard two guards in the barracks talking about a witch that had tried to break into the Tower recently. She had been pretty sure by the time she got in the _Amaranth_ this evening that her approach wasn’t going to be to unmask in the courtyard and hope nobody tried to shoot her before ( _or_ after) they realised who she was, but that had sealed it.

She had a ranking of who she would most prefer to reveal herself to first. At the top of the list was Maia, although she didn’t think she was working for Hiram and so was not optimistic of finding her this evening. Any of her ladies-in-waiting would be a good choice, truthfully, although she had a particular craving to hear the kind of remarks that Tuney might have about this whole affair. She was sure she couldn’t even imagine.

Gilroy and the other servant turned off into the passage that led to the dining room, and she continued on towards the royal apartments. It would be easier to sneak around if she were wearing servants’ garb. She turned into the laundry room and immediately had to throw up her arms to protect her face, although it was a few bewildered moments before she understood why. A maid was attempting to bludgeon her with a clothes iron. Jessamine recognised her face—

“Peri!”

Peri stopped, mostly out of surprise at hearing her own name, she thought. Jessamine took off her masks, and Peri dropped the iron back on the board with a _thunk_ , her other hand over her mouth and eyes wide. “Your Majesty—Oh, no, let me look at your arm, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise—"

“I think I’ll survive,” she said dryly, and then felt her mouth twitch at her own wording.

It was only then that Peregrine seemed to remember that Her Majesty was supposed to be dead and buried. She stared at her for several long moments.

“Ma’am,” she said prudently.

“Yes, Peri?”

She paused again. “Have you been in Dunwall Tower long?”

It wasn’t quite the question she had been expecting. She answered it nevertheless. “About ten minutes, I would say.”

She took this information thoughtfully and seemed to conclude something. “I see.”

There was a silent moment, devoid of explanations. Ought she to ask? She must. It would surely haunt her otherwise. “…Peri.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Oh, Agatha said she had seen your ghost on the third floor landing when she was fetching a jar of soothing salts to the bathroom a few weeks ago, but it mustn’t have been you.”

Well, she thought, she did bring this upon herself. “Ghosts,” she remarked. “How superstitious.”

“Yes,” she mused. The energy in the laundry room was absolutely bizarre. She had to endure it for a few more moments before Peri said, “May I be of any help to you, ma’am?”

There was, in fact, something she could do to help. “Which of my ladies are still in the Tower?”

“Just Lady Trentworth, ma’am. I believe she’s taking her dinner at the moment. I can fetch her, if you—"

“No, not just yet,” she said. Florence was a very good lady-in-waiting and very skilled in navigating court, but not one for espionage. Besides, Hiram had to be keeping her close at hand if he wasn’t making use of Maia’s skills, probably tried to account for every minute of her day. “Can you find me Leanne? I need to know everything that’s changed here since I’ve been away.” She hadn’t quite decided what she was going to do yet, but she thought it was a good place to start.

“Certainly, I can do that.”

“Thank you. Have her meet me… are my chambers being used?”

“No, ma’am. The Royal Apartments were blocked off after your… departure.”

“Perfect. Have Leanne meet me there.” It felt almost strange to be giving orders again. It wasn’t quite right in this skin. Like she was always standing just to the left of where she ought to be.

As she made her way into the apartments, she realised that Peri had said the entire wing of the Tower was sealed, and therefore she had no idea where Hiram was sleeping or conducting his business. The Imperial Suite, she could understand being closed – even if she hadn’t entirely expected it, given Hiram’s other “redecorating” – but there were _other_ apartments. Enough for the entire Olaskir family, and guests. And those rooms were actually designed to be the bedrooms of nobles. The apartments were practically a stronghold in themselves.

Her chambers were washed blue with moonlight. It was odd to feel that she was trespassing here, and her throat clenched tight as with a sudden swell, she remembered the day her father died. She was roused in the early hours of the morning with the firm insistence that she come to her father’s chambers immediately. It was uncertain if he would survive even until the dawn – in the end, he died with the sun on his face, streaming through the east window. Jessamine held one hand, and Cyril held the other.

That night, for reasons she had not been sure of then and was no more wise to now, she had slipped out of bed and into the Emperor’s room. It was already immaculate, fresh sheets well-aired and cool. It had felt then as if it had been untouched since Larisa Olaskir left it the day of her assassination.

The servants’ door opened, letting in a dagger of light, and Leanne closed it behind her. She bowed, as professional and unflappable as ever. Finding her dead Empress crying in her shadowed chambers was no reason for a hair in her grey, tidy bun to come out of place.

“Ah, Leanne. Good.” She dabbed her eyes with her fingertips.

“Shall I light a candle?” she asked.

She glanced at the window that overlooked the courtyard, with its grinding, blaring watchtower. “Better not.”

She nodded. Her hands were clasped firmly behind her back. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”

“You can tell me how the layout of the Tower has changed and the movements within it. Where is Hiram sleeping?”

She did the sharp breath through the nose that usually meant that one of the servants had fetched the wrong set of crockery, and said, “He had a bed moved into the office adjacent to the library.”

“What for?” she blinked. The room was not well defensible. It had a main entrance with huge double doors, but also a door to the library, a shared fireplace with the music room, and a balcony visible from the walkways on either side of the atrium. It was perfectly good as an audience room, and she was given to understand that her ladies often held meetings there if they were not formal enough to want one of the proper receiving rooms.

Leanne pursed her lips and made a noise which indicated that she didn’t know, and wasn’t happy about it. “General Tobias argued with him quite extensively about it. We think – that is, some of the staff have speculated – that it is the reason behind the saferoom on top of the Tower.”

“Yes,” she said sourly. The thing was unsightly. She supposed that Hiram had built it to have a place to go that was on no existing floor plans of the Tower, but it was coloured with irony. Didn’t Hiram know that most assassination attempts came from somewhere on the inside?

Well, of course he did.

“The General is in charge of security, in an official capacity. But the Lord Regent has been making almost all security decisions personally. For instance, he did not want anybody to have a key to the balcony doors in his new chambers, so he had them removed.”

“The keys?”

“The _doors_.”

That settled it. Hiram was a nervous wreck.

When Leanne had finished telling her about the Lord Regent’s strident routine (and it had to be bad, if it was so rigid as to make Leanne disapprove), Jessamine thanked her. There was an expectant pause, before she finally said, “You’re not going to ask me, are you?”

Leanne lifted her nose and began an unhasty tour around the room. She straightened the ivory whale sculpture that sat on the ornamental table beside the armchair as she passed. “The Mistress of House need only be concerned with the Empress’s activities insofar as she affects Her Majesty’s comfort. I will, however, ask when I should expect your return proper, so that the necessary arrangements can be made.”

The door opened again, and Jessamine flipped her sword out of its handle. The young boy who entered was tense even before he saw the blade. She couldn’t make out his face in the dark.

“What is it? Is someone coming?” asked Leanne. Realising that he had been posted there as lookout, Jessamine felt momentarily guilty about drawing her sword on the boy.

The squire only had time to squeak, “Um,” (and it was Fabian, of course it was) before the door opened wider and the stout, busy shape of Mrs. Shaw bustled into the room. She halted in front of Jessamine, and she was sure she was a picture – the Kaldwin Empress dressed in Olaskir coat, brandishing a sword.

“By my stars,” Mrs. Shaw breathed. “You’ll forgive me, ma’am—” she bobbed a quick curtsey “—but I had to see you for myself. Young Peregrine isn’t known to lie, but she does let her imagination run so.”

“She shouldn’t have told you—” Jessamine started to say, slightly ticked off at both Peri for letting her mouth run and herself for not making it clear enough that she was to keep her presence in the Tower secret. She was cut off by Mrs. Shaw placing a hand on her cheek.

“My dear Empress, what has become of you these past months? You are cold as the frost on the flowerbeds.”

Elspeth Shaw had been matron at Dunwall Tower longer than Jessamine had been Empress. She was always telling Emily off for scraping her knees and accidentally knocking out her loose teeth. Jessamine felt thirteen years old again. Having her tears wiped away by Mrs. Shaw’s mother, Diana, when she found her acting out in a desperate attempt to get her father’s attention. She missed Father. She missed Mother. She missed Delilah and Uncle Cyril. She didn’t _want_ to be a Princess. Mrs. Bramfield tutted and fussed, and asked Elspeth – lovely Elspeth, who had turned a blind eye to Jessamine and the ladies’ antics more than once – to fetch a warm drink from the kitchens.

“I thought all the tears I wept for you would drown the remainder of Dunwall, but here you are.”

“And what of young Lady Emily?” asked Deanna, and Jessamine was going to tell Fabian to _stop letting people in_ until she was distracted by the question.

“She’s safe.” There was an audible collective sigh of relief in the room – even from Leanne, who usually never betrayed her composure.

“And…” there was a subtle, but not quite subtle enough, glance around at the others present in the room by the Mistress of House. “Lord Attano?” she asked eventually.

“Recovering. I will clear his name soon.”

There were happy murmurings, among the most coherent Mrs. Shaw’s, “Oh, I am most pleased to hear that, ma’am, _most_ pleased.” None of them were tactless enough to say _We didn’t believe he murdered you_ or make any comment about the fond tone she had been unable to keep out of her voice.

“Please give this to the Princess,” Deanna said, holding out a plush doll – Mrs. Pilsen, Emily’s favourite companion for pretend tea parties and swashbuckling adventures.

“Thank you,” Jessamine said. “She will be very happy to be reunited. But I shouldn’t dally any longer. I have unfinished business with the Lord Regent. Exactly how I should conclude that business… I am yet to decide.” Thinking aloud again. She had thought she had stopped doing that.

“I have an idea,” said Fabian, with more confidence than he had yet shown today. All the eyes in the room turned to him.

Jessamine waited in her secret room for the signal. It was as she had left it, aside from the dust that had built up – audiograph player on the desk with the card addressed to Emily, a half-finished letter to Corvo on the end table. The bottle of rat poison she had ferreted away from the Tower’s stores in a bout of paranoia in 1926.

She had turned around the portrait of her mother to compose her letter, as always. Delilah had told her once that paintings could watch you, and she knew it was a fancy intended to scare her, but she had been wary of all the paintings in the Tower for months after that. She wasn’t a child anymore, but the tradition remained. Jessamine always turned her parents’ eyes and ears away from messages she left for Corvo, or conversations they shared. She used to joke that if Euhorn caught wind of their relationship he’d claw his way through the Void to put a stop to it. She wasn’t sure if it was less or more amusing in her present circumstances.

Jessamine returned Beatrix to her position watching over the nook. She had never quite worked out what the little room used to be. Her best guess remained that it had been part of a servants’ passage before renovations rendered it obsolete and it was blocked off, although she had no clues as to which iteration of the Tower it originally belonged to; the Olaskirs’ castle before the restoration work at the turn of the 19th century, the first Academy of Natural Philosophy before the buildings were commandeered during the Wars of the Four Crowns, or whatever it had been in the old city before it was abandoned. She also didn’t know when it was someone had decided to install a secret entrance in the fireplace.

She took the bone charm from the top of the filing cabinet and inspected it. She had put it up there when it got cracked while Emily was playing with it, but she hadn’t been sure if that would make it dangerous to use. Now, with her Void-gaze, she could hear its pained song and see the way it shuddered and spewed black mist at a faster rate than other bone charms. It was a shame; it wasn’t a common pronged charm, but a delicately carved crow’s skull on an elegant black chain. She attached it onto her charm-hooks and tried to see if she could notice any visible effects take hold. It was hard to tell with bone charms – sometimes you didn’t know what they did until they saved your life.

That was not a problem on this occasion. When Jessamine looked at her hand, she saw it shivering. It was uncanny, like she couldn’t quite hold her form. Trembling on the edge of the Void, a disturbed reflection in a lake made of mirror shards. After a moment, her eyes felt strained, as if she were wearing somebody else’s glasses, and she unhooked the charm. It would certainly draw the eye. And then give the onlooker a headache.

She heard the signal – a double-tap of Fabian’s heel against the floorboards just outside the secret room – and readied herself. The plan was simple. After General Tobias finished giving Burrows his evening report, Peri was called to dress Hiram into his night-clothes, or at least something more comfortable than his full Lord Regent regalia.

“What is this?” Hiram snapped at Deanna and Mrs. Shaw.

It was a very carefully-timed distraction. The servants curtsied. “We’re here to dress your bed, sir,” Deanna told him. “We thought you were sleeping in the safe room tonight and we were airing the sheets.”

“Get on with it, then.”

At the appropriate moment – the queen-sized duvet blocking the view to the safe, should Hiram turn around – Jessamine slipped from her hiding place on the balcony (made profoundly easier by the removal of the confounded doors, what was he _thinking_?) and broke into the safe. One of the page boys had seen the combination over the Regent’s shoulder and it had been passed through several servants, including the Propaganda Officer himself, although he’d had no way of getting into Hiram’s chambers personally to use it. Eventually, it had fallen into Fabian’s hands, and he had passed it to her. From inside, she took an audiograph and a letter, and closed the safe as quickly as possible.

“Can’t you go any faster?” he sniped.

“Yes, Lord Regent. Apologies, sir,” Mrs. Shaw said, and with a quick glance behind Deanna to make sure that Jessamine had successfully returned to the balcony, nodded to let the duvet down.

The audiograph was labelled quite conspicuously as ‘DO NOT PLAY’. She thought it was not quite an ideal trait in a spymaster to be reluctant to burn or destroy secret messages of huge importance and terrible implications, but it was lucky for her. He didn’t even have his covert correspondences and musings filed in a cabinet within a secret room in the Tower. _Amateur_.

Now she could take his confession to the broadcast tower, where the Propaganda Officer was miserably droning out announcements about the city-wide ban on whale oil use (except, of course, for the City Watch, who were allowed to use it to fry each other’s shoes and other such nonsense).

“He’ll help,” Fabian had nodded. “The Lord Regent had Minister Thalberg executed and he’s been making Mr. Simpson work five times as hard at things that aren’t even his job. He just wants to see his brother and nieces again.”

The death of the Minister for Information did explain a few things in Jessamine’s mind. She made a mental note to fit that into her picture of Dunwall when she had a spare moment.

He put up his hands to protect his face and chest when she approached. “Please, please don’t hurt me!” he pleaded. “You’re here to kill the Regent, aren’t you? Spare my life, and I can help you take him down.”

“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Simpson.” She produced the card. “I have here an audiograph from the Lord Regent’s chambers. I’d like you to play it, please.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, the words catching in his throat. He swallowed, and decided to gamble on the mercy of a stranger. “Do I have to be here?” he asked. “This amounts to treason, and—I don’t want to see my head roll alongside his.”

She nodded curtly. “Very well, you may go as soon as you have shown me how to operate your equipment.”

After he told her where to insert the card, which switches to flip, and where to control the volume, she gave him a few minutes to get clear of the broadcast tower for the purposes of deniability. While she waited, she unfolded the note she had taken from Hiram’s safe and inspected it. The wax seal on it was from none of the noble families in the Empire – she knew all of those, even the obsolete Brigmore and Moray seals. The signet was a whale, its tail curled in motion. She wondered if Daud had designed it himself.

> _Lord Spymaster,_  
>  _We had a specific agreement and I planned around it. You assured me that she and the girl would be alone; the bodyguard wasn’t supposed to be there. The price of the job just went up by 40%. Leave the coin at the alternate dead drop we agreed on or I’ll come collect the fee myself._

Jessamine felt oddly detached from the missive, despite its contents directly relating to her. She was quite amused to see that Daud had addressed Hiram as ‘Lord Spymaster’. It was the kind of flagrant disrespect that had got Theodanis Abele’s grandfather relegated to a poor Dukedom in Karnaca despite being raised in Gristish court and promised great things. Folding the note away, she slotted the audiograph into the machine, and started a city-wide broadcast.

While Hiram condemned himself, she heard a commotion in the hall, and careful investigation told her that he had attempted to run to the broadcast tower in his nightgown, and was apprehended by a member of the Royal Guard. Jessamine made a note of it; Commander Greggory hadn’t waited for the end of the broadcast to bring Hiram to his knees. “I think I’ve heard enough _now_ , don’t you, Hiram?” he asked darkly, yanking him to his feet.

“No! I can make you rich men if you just let me go. I beg you!”

“You nearly destroyed this city. No amount of money can undo that,” he said.

The opportunity presented itself. Further down the corridor, Hiram tried to break away from the guards, and had to be dragged backwards with his heels trailing the floor. There was no danger of the guards eyes’ passing over her, and so she slotted the cracked bone charm onto her belt and stepped into plain view. She stared daggers into Hiram, and while he was squirming, he spotted her flickering at the edge of the shadows. All of the colour he had worked up into his cheeks drained, and he was suddenly paler than the most pristine of sheets.

His words became a garbled mess less comprehensible than anything the Heart had ever said. Selected phrases she could make out, like “It’s the end!” and “The Void descends on Dunwall. Come to haunt me. Come to wreak havoc where I strived for perfection…” and “Have mercy! I only wanted… what was best…”

“Shall I hit him on the head, sir?”

“Do what you want, just get him to Coldridge,” Greggory said. “I’d like to see him hang tomorrow.” They took him around the corner, and he was gone.

“Will you stay, ma’am?” asked Fabian, at her elbow, and she almost jumped.

She shook her head and unclipped the bone charm. “I have other things to attend to first. Can you get this to Maia?” She took Daud’s folded note from her pocket.

“Yes, ma’am,” he took it. Then, as if anticipating that she was thinking about asking, added, “She’s been relegated to the courier’s office.”

She hummed. “I thought so. Please tell her to conceal it in a place that is both safe and unlikely. She may read it if she wishes. Thank you for all your help, Fabian.”

“It was my pleasure, ma’am,” he glowed. She thought that he meant it truly.

All that was left to do was leave. The Tower was abuzz with Hiram’s arrest, and the walk to the prison had become something of a parade. It made it even easier to sneak through the scaffolding on her way to the water lock – until she neglected her Void-gaze and came face-to-face with a guard in a sky blue coat. She was reaching for her sleep darts when she realised that she recognised the eyes she was locked with.

“Sean,” she said, relief flooding her. Corvo had told her that he had seen one of her other bodyguards, Oliver, get executed in the Coldridge Prison yard. She thought that if Hiram had had Oliver killed, it was very likely that he had Sean and Andrea killed as well, or else Daud’s Whalers had killed them during the attack. “It’s me.” As she reached for her mask, recognition dawned on his face.

Then he took a deep breath with intent to bellow for help.

Her hands weren’t free enough for a knife or a sleep dart, so she yanked with the Mark, and the world went grey. Suddenly Sean was moving like he was immersed in treacle; time itself had slowed to a crawl around her. She circled around to his back, clamped her left hand over his mouth and nose, and used her right arm to choke him out.

As she lay him on the ground, the Heart spoke: _“The day after, she confronted him. She knew he fiddled their shifts for the Spymaster so the Empress was alone. He couldn’t let anyone find out.”_

 _Andrea_ , Jessamine’s chest ached. Oliver had been executed for negligence of duty. He had been crying when Sullivan killed him, and neither Corvo nor Jessamine thought he was guilty. Oliver had never neglected a duty in his life – that was _why_ he was put on the bodyguard rotation when Jessamine was crowned. She supposed now that Sean had framed him. She supposed that her oblivious hopes of Sean and Andrea’s safety had been bitter irony for the Outsider’s amusement.

_“He feels guilt, but not repentance. He is only two merits away from another medal. He hopes to earn them today.”_

“His blood doesn’t deserve to grace the sword I’d run him through with,” she muttered, only managing to make the rebuff to the Heart’s unsubtle suggestion by insulting Sean at the same time. She started again towards the water lock, sombre at the realisation that she was eager to put Dunwall Tower behind her once again.


	13. Memento Mori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the mission in Dunwall Tower a success, Jessamine returns to the Hound Pits Pub to celebrate with the Loyalists, ready to bring her family home.

Emily flung open the door of the Hound Pits Pub with a beaming smile. “Hana!” she said, grabbing her hand and towing her into the bar.

She was met with a round of applause, and the impression that the party had begun the minute Hiram’s audiograph had gone out on the loudspeaker. Emily was wearing the dress Mr. Keating had made for her. Corvo had done two little braids in her hair that looped around and met at the back, the rest falling in gentle, shiny waves around her shoulders, and she realised – a large smile stretching across her face when she did – that he had styled his hair in the same manner, with a miniature ponytail at the back. They both looked very smart and again she entertained that warm, distant fantasy of being able to dance with Corvo in public. Before anyone knew who she was, before politics got in the way. It was a nice thought.

When she pulled Mrs. Pilsen from her coat, Emily gasped and lost all composure to fling her arms around Jessamine’s neck. She laughed, and set her down. Emily took Mrs. Pilsen under the arms and bounced, “Thank you thank you thank you thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” she smiled. “The staff at the Tower send their love.”

Emily showed Corvo, and he produced a shiny teal ribbon from his pocket, evidently an offcut from her dress. There had not been nearly enough for a full outfit, after all, but he tied it into her hair, and Emily proceeded to tell every likable adult in the room that she and her doll were matching.

Miraculously, Treavor was sober enough to give a congratulatory speech while a fresh round of drinks was handed out. “You’ve earned a drink, Hana,” he said. “You’ve performed your role perfectly and now you can relax. But for the rest of us, the real work starts tomorrow.”

“To Hana,” Havelock raised his glass. “The woman who served to change the course of history.”

Everyone followed suit, and Pendleton chipped in, “To Emily Kaldwin, and the new dawn rising for Dunwall and the Empire.” She had to pause her giddiness to bow her head gratefully.

“And to Corvo,” Martin added with a sort of languid humour, “cause he deserves a drink.”

“Here, here,” Anton said, and they all brought their glasses to their lips.

Her coat came off and she mingled, listening to people’s hopes for the future. She was glad to see that the servants were allowed to join in with the festivities, not simply relegated to standing by while the Loyalist men drank themselves merry. Samuel pulled the pints and poured the wine, but he was also nursing a whiskey of his own and telling Corvo a lively story about the Navy. Cecelia was still wiping down the counters and washing the glasses, but she was doing so of her own accord – Lydia asked her if she wouldn’t like to take a break and have a drink, and she said she would rather have something to do with her hands. She smiled at Jessamine, and told her she could feel something good coming.

Jessamine herself felt lighter than air. Her laugh came easier, her mind less weighed down by worries for her family and her Empire. She had forgotten how it felt to be _carefree_ , if she had ever known the feeling to begin with.

Even the sombre thoughts were hopeful – about memorials for people lost to the plague once they had found the cure, the work ahead of them rebuilding the city, everything suggesting a brighter future, where they could put the plague and the Lord Regent firmly to the past. There was a sense of nostalgia at the idea that this was most of the group’s last night in the Hound Pits Pub – at least as conspirators, rather than patrons. The Old Port District was crumbling and meagre for the most part, but it was the safest place they had. It was where Emily and Corvo had been reunited, where plans had come together to end Hiram’s tyranny, where they had shared meals and stories. Havelock even suggested they do a yearly reunion to celebrate the end they put to the interregnum.

 _“Something is wrong,”_ the Heart whispered.

She felt sorry for the boy. Always he seemed to be watching or feeling some great disaster, teetering on the edge of hopelessness about the world. She wished she could bring him here, let him draw with Emily and grimace at the sip of wine that one of the adults allowed him to take. Wrap him up warm and tell him a story where good triumphed over evil.

She activated her Void gaze out of habit although she knew that he was talking about some far-off place or time, passing it over Emily. She was drawing in her booth, ignoring the festivities around her – it was how she generally attended parties. Most grown-ups, she said, were quite a lot more boring than they thought they were. _Especially_ geniuses. Void-stuff was clinging and drifting around her as always, and Corvo was beside her.

But then she saw her own glass in her peripheral vision, and noticed that it, too, was swirling with the Void. Her stomach felt light, like the gut of a sailor who hadn’t quite found her sea legs. She wasn’t merely unburdened by responsibility and tipsy; dread and nausea washed over her with that realisation.

She gripped the closest shoulder, crumpling the sleeve of Lydia’s cardigan with her fist. “Should’ve had Matthäus taste that wine,” she mumbled. She meant to say _I’ve been poisoned_ but it amounted to the same thing. Lydia had steadied her automatically, one hand on her arm and the other on her waist, and she thought she might be swaying, and wasn’t dancing nice? She wanted to dance with Corvo, she wanted to kiss him, she wanted to…

“Who knew, the assassin can’t hold her drink,” Martin remarked. Her eyes darted to him, and then to each of the other Loyalist men. Piero wasn’t here. He had been here earlier, hadn’t he, for the toasts? Where had he run off to?

“Lydia, why don’t you take Hana to her chambers? I think she’ll need some help reaching them,” Pendleton said. He said it down his nose, like a shaded remark about a carried-away party guest, and she thought that was very rude of him. For somebody who was hardly ever to be found sober, he was very disapproving of other people getting drunk. She thought she should probably tell him off, inform him that it was extremely impolite to fill someone with poison and then tut at them for behaving without perfect decorum, but she was feeling like she might throw up at any moment.

The Heart was whispering, hurried and quiet, and he had been for a while. She only caught snatches of what he was saying. “ _…the end.”_ _“Some of them are still breathing.” “…he tells her…”_

She found Corvo’s eyes in the room. He was blurry, but she thought he was looking… His back straightened, standing to attention as she squinted. Definitely looking. He was worried, that was his worried frown.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked, her pencil set down in concern and her brow furrowed. Little Emily, playing Empress… she looked so grown up, and that way she frowned was just like Mother sometimes. Beatrix Kaldwin had a very distinct frown. Delilah once said it was like she was trying to hold a piece of ice on her tongue. It was funny how people could inherit the traits of family members they had never met.

_"When the last leviathan is gone, darkness will fall."_

Callista said, “Everything’s fine,” in a way that was not very convincing. “But there’s a lot to do tomorrow. I think we ought to retire to your tower for the night.” She was gathering Emily’s drawings and gesturing – respectfully, but insistently – that Emily move towards the door.

“What about Hana? Is she okay?” even as she was ushered out the door, she was looking around at Jessamine.

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Pendleton said, and Havelock did a laugh that sounded quite hollow. Not forced, exactly. But it wasn’t a laughter made out of joy.

The light in the bar caused a sharp pain behind her eyes that only turned into a throbbing when she closed them. There was no paralysis in her muscles, and her breathing wasn’t short. She was dizzy and nauseous, but there were no abdominal pains. Not hemlock, cyanide, aconite, or arsenic. As she crossed the room, the floor wobbled and buckled like the surface of the ocean, far out. The voices behind her were distant and cluttered her concentration. She ran out of bartop to lean on too quickly, but she made it into the night air, where things became less turbulent. She would have felt chloroform go down it if were in her drink, she thought… but her sensitivity was shot. She better not rule it out.

_“Admiral Havelock grows restless on land.”_

Her hand slapped against the brick of the workshop’s exterior as she steadied herself on the building. Belladonna was a possibility. “What’d you do?” she slurred at Piero, who had been staring pensively at the courtyard in the opening to the workshop until a moment ago.

Now he looked rather startled. “Hana? Oh, dear.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “It appears you’ve had quite a bit to drink. Uh, allow me to escort you to your room.” He reached for her arm, and she slapped it back.

“Don’t be so bold, sir,” she told him, in an imperfect High Court accent, and propelled herself past him into the workshop itself. She pushed around crates that had been shipped in for his experiments, sheafed through papers that were too blurry to read, searching for an indication of… something. She would know it when she saw it, probably.

_"It wasn't her fault. There was a struggle for the pistol."_

There was a chorus of clinking glass as she pulled a milk crate out from under a workbench and saw flasks, and filters, and tubes half-arranged into a complex system. “Aha,” she said, feeling that it was progress somehow.

“That’s very delicate equipment, it’s, it’s for distilling my remedies,” Piero stammered. “Please, be careful.”

The distilling equipment was stained with the Void. Piero’s remedies were not. _Some people import toxins from Pandyssia_ , she did not say, because her verbal faculties had apparently failed her. _You seem to have imported your poison of choice from the Void._ Something occurred to her; a leap of the mind which she could afterwards plot neither point A or B of. She stood (quite suddenly, as she did not remember moving) in front of Piero’s door to nowhere. She pressed a hand to the painted bricks, and found it solid. It was cool against her skin. What an unusual sensation that was. Her other hand joined the first. The Heart was still whispering rapidly, overlapping with himself. She pressed her ear against the wall to hear him better, and realised that not all of the voices were his. Still the words seemed to swirl in and out, giving her only a moment to hear them.

_"Make me look on it no more!"_

_“You are like the rivermen.”_

_“My father had hair like spun gold.”_

_"Your usefulness is spent."_

_"Eyes black as polished onyx as he marked her flesh. My flesh."_

“Hana—”

She twisted his arm and brought him to his knees when he put his hand on her shoulder. He cried out, and she felt a throbbing in her Marked hand. On impulse, she yanked the back of his jacket collar down, where it had been turned up. On the back of his neck there were markings – lines of power, like the hands of Peter the Whaler, brushed by the Void but not Marked. “What did you do?” she hissed.

She heard the door open to the pub, a cacophony reaching out like shadows grasping at her feet, and she jumped from Piero’s balcony to the courtyard. It was a slow fall, covering the distance to the steps that led down to the water, but it didn’t feel like her usual featherdance. She seemed to lose her solid form altogether, turning into shadows and smoke until she touched down upon the mud again. She glided down the steps instead of running, and Samuel looked spooked for a moment after he looked up from starting the _Amaranth_ ’s engine. Then his expression hardened. “Get in.”

“Wait!” Emily shouted. She was sliding down the sheer brick wall from the level above, and when her shoes splatted firmly into the mud, she ran over to them. She was clutching Mrs. Pilsen and had adventure in her eyes.

“I thought Callista took you up to your tower,” Jessamine said.

“I climbed down the side,” she said, and Jessamine didn’t know whether or not it was the poison making her feel faint in that moment. The boat lurched or maybe her stomach did, and she steadied herself on Samuel’s shoulder. “Where’s Corvo?” Emily asked. “He’s coming, right?”

Jessamine heard the bang, heard the Void’s clamouring in her head fall to silence. She felt herself falling, she felt herself hit the water, felt the bubbles rise around her. It was only after that that she understood the sound of a pistol’s safety latch clicking that had preceded the gunshot, the glint of the barrel aimed directly at her chest. Havelock, his cheeks flushed by alcohol and the cool night air, with an expression between calm determination and spiteful rage. By the time she understood that she had been shot, she could no longer see the moon distorted and pale through the water’s murk. The world was dark, and cold, and watery, and she sank into its shadows.


	14. Tainted Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Something's not right..._

Sitting on the seabed, she can see the light way up above, but it doesn’t reach her. It casts a soft blue glow that silhouettes the fish and the whales swimming overhead. She watches them drift and dance from where she sits in the shadow of the dead gods and drowned ships. They are hulking things, their corpses laid together making crevasses and ravines. They are becoming part of the ocean floor, petrifying or turning to dust. Lived on by coral, fed on by shrimp that glow through the murk.

It is peaceful here. Everything is soft, and the whales are singing with their chirps and moans. Sometimes they sound sad; perhaps they are mourning the old gods. Not all death is violent, and harsh, and made of steel blades. Some death is quiet. Some death disturbs only a puff of sand, as the body of one ancient and unknowable touches the bottom of its great ocean and closes its eyes. Some deaths, nobody knows anything about for millennia, until some curious little fish uncovers the bones.

One of the whales trills up above. She looks up and sees the shadow of a whaling trawler passing over. The fish are scattering, but the whales are slower. One is swimming towards the ship with its teeth bared. There is something else – a dark shape, getting bigger. Getting closer to her. It is unfurling its tentacles and reaching for her with suckered limbs, mouth gaping, teeth sharp. Inky blackness overtakes her.

“My dear Jessamine. It seems people just can’t stop killing you.”

They were back in the Void. Or perhaps she had been for a while – her mind was foggy with headache, and she longed for the return of the peaceful feeling she’d had at the bottom of the ocean. The sky, or perhaps it was the water, was like a mirror. In it she could see distorted forms of birds and whales, the waterlogged buildings of the Rudshore Financial District. There was a smell of river krust and spring flowers in the air – or was it the water? The Outsider was sitting close by. He tilted his head at her.

“Show me Emily,” she said, and her voice was hoarse in her throat. She felt as if she’d been dead another six months.

“You’re not in a position to make demands,” he said, but it wasn’t sharp and biting. He spoke in a soft, safe kind of darkness. The kind that hid tender secrets, and not foul ones. “If you want to find your daughter, you had better get up.”

The last words echoed as the Void faded away, and she woke with a start to a chill on her skin and an ache in her bones. There were rats squeaking at her feet as she lay sprawled atop loose bricks at the bottom of a pit. She tried to move, and the pain increased tenfold. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out, and it bounced off the metal sides of the pit.

“Don’t try to move,” said a Whaler up above, his voice distorted through his mask. “The boss will be here shortly to deal with you.”

She reached for the Mark, and heard a pathetic _psh_ sound, a wave against the shore on a windless day. She tried again, and the symbol on the back of her hand barely lit up at all before it faded again. Even so, it hurt her eyes. There were more grunts and groans, coming with her breaths now. She couldn’t stop them – she couldn’t even settle back in to the vague discomfort she had had before.

She needed to get to Emily and Corvo. It was the only thing stopping her from passing out again. Poor Emily had seen her mother die a second time – and poor Corvo had been helpless to stop it, _again_. She had to reach them, quickly. Soon, Havelock would realise that he couldn’t manipulate Emily with Corvo around. She had come too far, done too much, to let anyone take him away again. And the Empire didn’t need another Lord Regent in Emily’s lifetime. All of these thoughts crowded her head, increasing the pressure inside. Jessamine screamed with effort, and she didn’t know what she was doing but she was rising, up through the wooden slats atop the pit and out the other side.

Coming back together out of smoke and shadow _hurt_ , it was like a chemical burn ripping through her nerves, or her blood vessels being cast in iron, or some other horrible thing that she had never wanted to experience. How could the Outsider bear it, flitting about the place like that?

“Wh—How did you—?!”

She lunged for the Whaler. “Shh!” She intended to cover his mouth, but her hand slapped against the muzzle of his mask instead. The migraine was throbbing stronger than her heartbeat, and she could barely think through it, certainly not enough to stop the Whaler from unsheathing his sword.

The cut that slashed along her torso didn’t draw blood. What it did was release the screams of old gods and long-dead sorcerers from her veins. A phrase of whalesong, a curse hissed in an ancient tongue, laughter like peeling bells and sobs of the deepest sorrow. All of it came pouring out, evaporating into smoke or flitting away as specks of light. When it was gone, Jessamine heaved her lungs, filled them with cold morning air, and it was sharp in her chest.

“Thomas!”

The Whaler was on the ground. His associates were clattering down the stairs. She felt, rather than heard, one of them appear behind her, but by the time she processed the motion, she was already smoke, plunging towards the stagnant water in the ground floor of the building. In her hand, she was clutching two vials of Piero’s remedy that she didn’t remember stealing.

She didn’t feel any different to the weepers. They stumbled around, their feet splashing in spilled whale oil, flinching at sudden noises. They huddled in groups around fires, clinging to warmth and light. They tugged the less-aware of their number out of the paths of river krusts – Jessamine heard one (a woman, about her age, with blood-crusted amber eyes and thinning dark hair) grunt when she was about to move into the firing line for their acidic phlegm, and she felt touched. These were her people, down here. She should have been caring for them, not the other way around.

The remedies she downed started to help her feel less foggy in the head. Most of the pain had been relieved when the Whaler cut her, and although her stomach felt hollow – she supposed she must have been sick at some point, puking up all the rich party food and hopefully a good portion of the poison – she no longer felt on the brink of collapse.

Greaves Refinery seemed gargantuan to her as she stared up at it. She had seen illustrations of ruined, towering spires in Pandyssia that made the artists almost mad just looking at them, and she hadn’t understood it terribly until just then. There was a notion somewhere in the back of her mind, some instinct, that tempted her to climb to the highest point of clocktower in Parliament Square, and attempt to touch the gods. The refinery was a piece of that, with the lifeblood of the old gods’ vessels flowing from the gutters into the mud below.

When did she become an expert in old gods? People could be whipped and hanged and burned for less than whispering about anything from before the Abbey of the Everyman, let alone before the Outsider himself. The pantheon of Ancient Cebryros was a footnote in a history book M. Havannah had sent her from a private library that might have been his own. But now—it wasn’t like she _knew_ the old gods, exactly. She couldn’t call to mind their names or looks or any specifics at all, but she felt an odd sort of… closeness. Like they both had their hands pressed either side of a wall.

There was a red creature with a hacking cough hunched in the bowels of Greaves Refinery. For a jolting moment, she thought it might be the assassin who killed her, poisoned by the flooded district and left to rot, but the truth wasn’t less unsettling. Campbell’s face was twisted and scarred where she had burned the brand into it. When he saw her, bleary and watery-eyed, he lunged at her with an incoherent wail. If any of what came from his mouth among the bloody spittle and bile was Gristish, she couldn’t hear it.

_“Before he lost his wits to the disease, he wished he could have spread the plague to more people. Make them suffer as he is suffering.”_

Revolted now in both mind and body, Jessamine freed her Marked hand, holding him at arm’s length with her right, and struck him in the throat. He gurgled, reeling back, and she swung him around by the arm until she had him in a headlock. His neck snapped and lolled, and then he disintegrated into black ash. She felt dizzy, unsure if she had just attacked Daud after all and he had transversed out of her grip. Her hands were dusted with soot, and the headache was starting again. There was still something… deeply wrong. In whatever it was she had instead of blood.

“Boss wants to talk to her.”

Jessamine crouched down in the dark at the sound of the Whaler’s filtered voice, and saw the pair milling on the grate above. One was sat on the railing, feet swinging over the side, and the other was leaned against it the opposite way, arms crossed. They were swirling with more Void-stuff than she had seen on any other person save Emily (dear, darling Emily, what did the Outsider want with her and what could she do to stop it?).

“Somehow I don’t think she’s going to come with us if we just ask nicely.”

“We’ll bring her in, one way or the other. She’ll have to come back to the Commerce Building if she wants all that fancy gear back.”

“Damn shame. I was looking forward to casting lots for it.”

The way the Whalers spoke was interesting. It wasn’t the slang-filled lingo of the Dunwall streets that the other gangs in the city favoured. There was a definite Lower Dunwall bouquet to it, the occasional drop of a ‘H’, but certain words almost seemed to imitate the High Court despite a lack of the proper grammar in the sentences as a whole. She had never heard anyone but Whalers speak with that particular combination of accents – although until recently she hadn’t spent enough time around common people to notice.

The Chamber of Commerce; what a choice that was. Assassination, she supposed, was indeed a business, and the irony of conducting it in the building that concerned itself with the legitimate businesses of Gristol must have been enticing. She was quite curious whether Daud had moved in before or after he took the contract to kill her. It would reveal rather a lot about his character, she thought, although she wasn’t entirely sure what. If it was a recent tenancy, she would have to question whether he chose the building which had a 45-foot statue of the late Empress carved into the south corner for vain reasons, or because it was one of the only buildings in the Rudshore Financial District from which it was impossible to be pierced with Jessamine’s stone gaze.

She didn’t like the statue much. This Empress was too moon-faced, her chin too pointed, and the hairdo the sculptor had hewn her with made her look far too much like her mother. Her left arm had broken off during the flooding, and wasn’t that funny? Maybe it sat on the riverbed with a Mark burned into it, gathering limpets and seaweed.

At the entrance to the Rudshore Waterfront upper level, an Overseer’s death rattle reached for her. He expired moments later, and all of the others were long gone, cold. So many bodies. Food for the rats.

 _"These waters are greedy. They will never give back what they have taken,”_ said the Heart.

Maybe so. Maybe the flooded district would just crumple brick by brick into the river and be washed out to sea and be lost forever. Maybe the river krusts and rats would entrench themselves so deeply that there was no hope of recovery. But she didn’t have to help them along. The Void couldn’t have her city yet.

So she piled the Overseers together in one great stinking pile, drenched it in whale oil (and there was a little irony in that too; the lifeblood of the Deep Ones, the very creatures that the Abbey reviled), and set it alight. She thought she could hear them singing in the flames – mindless beasts of the Void, untethered from divine grace…

That was in no sermon she had ever heard. When was the last time a preacher spoke of divine grace, alluded to any source of benevolent power in the world? The followers of Holger did naught but hate the Outsider. There was no salvation waiting for them – the best they could do was avoid damnation. The air was filled with the stench of burning flesh and the horseradish sensation of burning oil in the nose. She wondered, as the pyre roared and she murmured a blessing of peace half-remembered from Cyril’s funeral, if these Overseers had done enough. If the Strictures had kept them from the cold embrace of the Void, or if they wandered, now, in the Outsider’s domain.

The leaves of the beautiful old elm tree in the centre of Rudshore Market were long gone. That wasn’t unusual – it _was_ still winter. But the bark was crinkled and grey, its soil washed-out and muddy. Whale oil ran in streams through the marketplace, and it might have sustained the gods, might have powered fancy new heating and lighting systems in the Empire, but it didn’t do well soaked into the soil. She was no natural philosopher, and leafing through Piero’s notes hadn’t done anything to enlighten her about the meaning of words like “antioxidant” or “wax ester” but she did glean that he believed the spillages to be related to the river krust infestation.

The rail station was in a dire state. A carriage sat in the bay, ready for passengers that would never come, if the modifications to the tracks were anything to go by. The rails had been de-electrified, and planks and sheets of metal had been laid over the tracks to make a precarious bridge.

They didn’t all wear black. Some of the assassins were dressed in blue, or grey. One was dressed in red, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out on the Chamber of Commerce, facing the Empress. Vain, then.

Weaving through the shadows was easier than she expected. One would expect that assassins with their abilities would be more wary to anyone skulking around their hideout, but soon enough, she had her sword fitted in the palm of her hand once more. Something shifted under her skin when she slung her bone charm sash over her shoulder and clipped the others onto her belt.

She ought to climb down through the building and enter the sewers that lead to the Old Mosley Canal. Her business here was finished.

Yet she was watching the back of a red coat. She had some notion that she should face him, but what could she say? _I bid you, the Knife of Dunwall, whom my Spymaster paid to assassinate me as paid killers are wont to do, apologise to me for my murder. The fact that I am not dead, inconsequential. You still ought to apologise._

The Whaler in the red coat turned his head, and she caught her breath as she saw the snout of his whaling mask. Then a woman’s voice said, “If you’re looking to kill Daud, you’re too late.” Jessamine was startled into standing up straight, and the Whaler continued, “The old man croaked weeks ago. Like all the life just drained right out of him.”

That made an intrinsic sort of sense to her, some part of her heart that was satisfied with that. She had woken up two months ago; deep in the Month of High Cold, where most everything shrivelled and died, she had sprung back to life. The Outsider had asked her, hadn’t he, what she was willing to do? If she was prepared to kill her own subjects for the chance at saving the rest. He could have made a worse trade, than her life for the life of the one who killed her. She had never known the man, but when his steel passed through her chest, she had felt a piece of him, a shard of his icy heart. He used his Void-soaked hands to push her from the realm of the living, and for a moment, she thought, they had both known each other just perfectly. Then he pulled his blade from her, and she slipped from the world, and there were black oceans separating their souls, and they no more knew each other than two passing ships in the night.

But for that moment, in that brief glimpse of the infinite, of the Void, she had seen the span of his life just as he cut hers short. It must have been like what the Heart saw; she felt his cold, conceited heart, and the way he turned blame out from it. Pushing responsibility on the circumstances of his birth, on the ones who taught him to be quick-fingered and close-fisted, on the one who burned black magic into the back of his hand and told him to do with it what he would.

So Daud was dead. She hadn’t realised she knew so much of him until moments ago, but Jessamine allowed herself to think, _Good_.

“He always thought it would be one of us that killed him. It’s how most assassins die; stabbed in the back. It was going to be me.”

Despite all the contempt that had just stirred in her heart, Jessamine was taken aback by the nonchalance she said it with – it was not as if killing was foreign business to assassins, she knew that, but… this was different. The Loyalists had been calling Hana an assassin, but this woman made her realise that she was nothing of the sort. She had no idea what world they lived in.

“It’s funny,” she said, without humour. “I thought he’d gone soft, the way he was acting after he killed the Empress. Waking up in a cold sweat, muttering to himself. I thought it would be better for the crew if I took his place. But now he’s gone, and I just want him back.”

The Whaler turned around and regarded her. There was a tense, silent moment, where Jessamine thought that she might have a sword drawn on her.

“It’s no ordinary poison in your veins. That’s Void-taint. It should have killed you hours ago,” she said at last. “Who are you?” Her face was unreadable behind the mask. “It hardly ever matters in this line of work. People rise up from nothing all the time. But not you. You didn’t just rise up – you appeared like a phantom. Call me a hypocrite, but I don’t believe in ghosts. So tell me, who are you?”

This was Daud’s second-in-command, and surely had had a hand in her assassination. She ought to feel the same swell of contempt as she did for Daud. Not only that, but she had to consider the possibility that if she revealed her identity, she would decide to finish the job. If she suspected that the Outsider had swapped their places…

_“She appears in a haze of black ash and catches the boy by the wrist as he slips from the guttering. She was told not to move from her post, but she couldn’t just watch.”_

If the Heart, in all his bitterness, could find a way to focus on a ray of light in someone’s countenance, then so could she. She had no mask to remove, no token she could produce to prove her identity. She supposed with the long, loose hair and the shadowed eyes and the poor woman’s garb, she didn’t look a great deal like Jessamine Kaldwin, even with the beauty mark on her upper lip and the steel blue Kaldwin eyes. And it wasn’t as if people’s first thought would be that she was the eight-months-dead Empress, slumming it as an assassin, in any case. So she simply said, “As a lady of esteem, we make it a rule never to introduce ourself at the point of a knife, if you don’t mind.”

For a moment, the assassin just stared. And then she began to laugh. It was not short or polite, but it was real. She imagined that the Whaler standing behind her was quite baffled by the whole exchange, but they sheathed their sword when their leader made a gesture – it was quite close to the Serkonan Sign Language command for “at ease” that Corvo used occasionally in his drills with the Royal Guard.

The red Whaler took off her mask as the laughter tailed off, and dabbed at her eyes, dark and twinkling with tears. “The Outsider’s a cruel bastard,” she said. She chuckled again. “The Old Knife lost his mind over a murder he never committed.” She cleared her throat. “Boys!” she hollered vaguely around her. “Hold the poisoned wine and hidden blades. We’re in the presence of royalty.” She dipped her head and shoulders in a bow most minimal and sarcastic.

She heard a single muffled bark of laughter from some nearby cranny, and the red Whaler flicked her eyes towards the sound before returning her attentions to Jessamine.

“This way, Majesty,” she gestured, and she jumped down to the lower level with a heavy _thump_ and an unencouraging creak of wood. The building was half washed away, and she didn’t feel particularly stable on it, but her featherdance (and a touch of smoke at the edges, she would have to learn how to _control_ that) had her setting down gently. They were walking into the Commerce Building – no transversals.

As if reading her mind, the assassin glanced at her and said, “Daud’s gone. We don’t share his power any more.”

“But you’re still assassins?”

She gave her a funny sort of look, and said, “The crew’s about a tenth of the size it was the day we killed you. When Daud croaked, half of them seemed to snap out from under a spell, and most of the rest went to find mercenary work elsewhere. Not a lot of transferable skills in this line of work. It’s a bit late for a career change.” Maybe she was older than she looked, but Jessamine wouldn’t put her any older than thirty. Then again, the life expectancy of assassins was probably… “You mentioned Void-taint,” she said, deciding to drop the subject. The career of Daud’s second-in-command really shouldn’t be her concern, and she doubted she’d be thanked for her input. “But I’m already Marked. How could the Void harm me?”

“It isn’t the same. The taint only affects witches and sorcerers. Ordinary people just don’t feel it.” She ducked through the glassless window into the building. At Jessamine’s prompting look, she sighed. “Imagine the Outsider’s Mark is a finely aged Serkonan wine. You use the Mark, you take a sip.”

She frowned. “Okay?”

“You’ve had a bottle of undiluted Tyvian vodka injected into your veins.”

Ah. That was… vivid. “I should be dead,” she surmised.

“You should be worse,” she said, starting down the stairs into the main part of the room. “The taint clings to everything the Void touches. Your sword, for example. Anything you use with your powers gets tainted. People, too. You’ve heard the folk tale that only a witch can kill another witch? I think that’s where it comes from.”

Jessamine pulled on the Mark, as falteringly as it would lend its power at the moment, and used her Void-gaze on the woman. She was right – the Void clung and swirled around her, around many of the objects furnishing the Whalers’ hideout.

The office of an assassin, it turned out, was plush and dignified. This was only slightly because it was the Director General of the Chamber of Commerce’s office before the district flooded. Even the boards of wanted posters, maps, and correspondences seemed classy. It was a well-kept hideout, even if they had ripped some of the floorboards out of less important rooms to make their bridge. Despite the surrounding architecture being much less in-tact, it was much nicer than the Hound Pits. Jessamine supposed that one had to be organised to run a gang of infamous assassins. Said leader of assassins was currently digging through the drawers of a desk.

“What is your name?” Jessamine asked.

She looked momentarily startled, and then did a short huff resembling the start of a laugh. “Right. I feel I’ve heard your name every day for eight months, but you have no idea who I am. My name is Billie Lurk, and I won’t kill the Empress a second time.” As she introduced herself, she straightened and, having pulled something out of the drawer she was rooting through, offered her the object. It took her a second to recognise it, but then she realised – it was her knife. The elegant stiletto with the blade that folded into the pearl handle, which Corvo had gifted to her for her twenty-third birthday.

“Where did you get this?” She took it into her hands, running her thumb over the little groove in the pearl.

Billie’s lip quirked. “You don’t remember? When Daud came to kill you, you tried to pull it on him. People don’t surprise Daud, not if he can help it. His targets don’t have _time_ to. But first there was Corvo, taking shots at us when he wasn’t supposed to be in Dunwall, and then there was you. Punching him in the throat and flashing a knife at him. He got it out of your hand, but…” she made an expression that suggested she thought he might not have been so lucky.

She folded the blade back inside the handle and clasped it tightly in her fist. “Thank you, Billie.”

“Don’t mention it. Still foggy in the head?”

It was better – but yes. She nodded.

She made a noise that indicated she thought as much. “You’ll have to let the rest of the poison out. Thomas did you a favour by cutting you open, earlier, though I wouldn’t thank him for it. He probably was trying to kill you.”

She winced. “I didn’t mean – is the gentleman alright?”

She laughed, “The _gentleman_. I’d keep that to yourself, it’ll go straight to his ego. He’s fine. A little shaken, maybe. You must have one hell of a power, cause he doesn’t rattle easily.”

“Mm,” she said. The pained screech probably hadn’t helped matters. How very unbecoming of an Empress. “So, the poison?”

“Right. May I have your hand?” She gestured for the right, and she gave it. “I’ve got to break the skin,” she said, producing a flip knife from her pocket. “Not deep, but…”

“Just do it,” she said. Her life in the hands of the assassins who killed her. Strange times. Then, when Billie began drawing a sigil on the back of her hand – to her word, none of the cuts were deep, barely enough to draw blood – because she started to feel odd watching arcane symbols into her skin, she said, “This is witchcraft, isn’t it, rather than sorcery? I wasn’t aware people mixed the two.” It was a subtle distinction, and one she’d only learned about recently, but warlocks got their power from the Outsider directly. Witches siphoned it from the Void without his mediation. “Was Daud ever poisoned like this?”

Billie was intent on her task, not even acknowledging the questions. Perhaps the witchcraft had something to do with how she had been planning to undermine Daud – she had best not press. Not when she was at her mercy.

“Your accent is unusual,” she tried instead.

“Thank you,” she said. She didn’t seem eager to expand, but said after a moment, “I came to Dunwall from Las Puertas. First Gristish I learned was Lower Dunwall rhyming slang.”

“Well, thank goodness you kept learning, or I wouldn’t be able to understand a word you say.”

She smiled. “Okay, done. Use the Mark, and everything should flush out.”

She summoned the power, and the back of her hand glowed brighter than it had cared to since she woke up in the flooded district. The last dregs of ache in her bones and her head were washed away, out through her right hand with whispers from the Void. When it was gone, the cuts sealed themselves back together, leaving no trace. She felt stronger, more like herself.

The Lower Dunwall accent – of which there had been hardly a hint when she spoke previously – took over as Billie said, “There you suture an' sew, me starling. Right as pleasure.” She laughed as she blinked at her, and reverted to her usual (perfectly comprehensible) accent. “Before you go, I should warn you. There are more than just assassins moving in the shadows. While your people have been making your moves, the Brigmore coven has been making theirs. If you want your empire back, you’re going to have to find Delilah.”

 _Delilah_.

It didn’t have to be her Delilah. It wasn’t an uncommon name in Gristol. It was much more likely to be some other woman named Delilah trying to wrest control of the Empire than her childhood friend, except…

Except for the dream, the only one she’d had since dying. The dress adorned with thorns and roses, the calculating eyes of a witch as she breezed into the Dunwall Tower receiving room and said, _Hello, sister._ The coven that she had seen snatches of, organising in the shadows of the city as it crumbled, waiting for the right moment; that was hers. She thought she had enough on her plate with the Bottle Street Gang in the Distillery District, the Dead Eels and Hatters fighting for control of the Tailors’ District and the Wrenhaven. Whalers in Rudshore, City Watch on every other corner. Now she had to contend with Brigmore Manor, in neglected disarray outside the city’s limits. A witches’ den.

Her mind was racing. Was this why ancient memories of her childhood had been dredged up all of a sudden? Was Delilah going to make like Havelock and take advantage of the interregnum, having waited for the Loyalists to do the heavy lifting of weakening and deposing Hiram and his regime? A witch on the throne – it was the setup of a fairy-tale. A story about a Princess hidden from her birthright, or some long-ago kingdom concealed in a thousand-mile thicket of thorns. The Coven that began the Great Burning was the stuff of legend, before Dunwall was Dunwall. There had been no band of magic-users since that matched it, and no notion that there ever would be. Not since the Siege of Whitecliff wiped out the last holdout from the Abbey’s doctrine in the Empire.

What was Delilah going to do with Emily? There were old stories, witches walking in the skin of other people. Pulling on invisible puppetstrings and making kings dance to their whim. Ordering armies, raising tidal waves, commanding the very stones that countries were built on. Did she intend to make war between the Isles once more? Drive the Abbey back into Tyvia until she could wipe the Overseers out like they had tried to do at Whitecliff? Do what High Overseer Grafton could not and conquer Pandyssia, filling the ruined temples and cities wasted by the plague that was now killing Dunwall?

Part of her said that the Delilah she knew would never dream of such a thing. That she was a practical girl and that mischief did not denote treason and conquest. Another part of her said that she couldn’t claim to know Delilah after twenty-three years apart. That she had no idea now what Delilah was capable of, or what she was willing to do.

The Old Mosley Canal took her to a mass grave. By the minute, coal carts tipped more corpses into the canal, and then sped off to collect a new haul. There were plague victims here; weepers, but others too. People with their wits still about them. Muttering idle comforts to each other, humming lullabies with cracked voices. Coughing, and wheezing, and waiting to die. Or scheming to escape, get back to their families, get home. It made her blood – whatever it was she had for blood – boil.

_"They bring the bodies here. With rough hands. Rough hands and cages. Some of them are still breathing. The water is so cold and it is the last thing they feel."_

The ones who did this would die in fire.

The stilt walker she targeted first took a surprised step back as she hurtled towards them, tried to bring their bow up to loose an arrow at her, but her sword was through their heart before they could think of drawing the string. Their armour clattered as they turned to ash inside it and she twisted the bow out of the empty gauntlet into her own hand. When the equipment crashed to the ground, the whale oil tank on its back combusted. She used the blast to launch herself into the air, drawing the bowstring back to her chin and loosing an incendiary arrow at the next tallboy. She was a whirlwind of smoke and fire, and she was lighting Rudshore Gate ablaze.


	15. True Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessamine returns to the Hound Pits Pub.

Skinny fingers pushed strands of red hair out of the way as the girl tested the lock on the door shutter. As shadows flooded the basement, she held her arms up to her face and gasped, “Please, no!” Her breath was bated another moment, then green eyes came peeking over her arms and, if possible, widened even further. “It’s you,” she breathed.

Some of the fog cleared from Jessamine’s mind, and she pressed the heel of her hand to her temple, feeling the migraine throbbing there. “Cecelia,” she managed, her voice strained. The poison – she thought it had been flushed out. She stared at her hands, trying to figure out what was wrong with them. Her journey from the flooded district to the little apartment across from the Hound Pits was hazy, and trying to bring forth the memory felt like trying to catch smoke.

“We thought—Samuel said—”

“Where’s Emily?” she cut off the girl’s concern with her own. She ought to have spent her time getting back here preparing a plan. She felt disorganised in mind and body (her gloves were missing, that was it, that was why her hands looked wrong), but her first priority remained unchanged. She needed to make sure her daughter was safe.

Cecelia sounded apologetic when she said, “Mr. Havelock took her.” When Jessamine put a hand against the wall to steady herself, she asked worriedly, “Are you hurt?”

“No… no,” she dismissed the words with a shake of her head, endeavouring to do the same to her dizziness through sheer determination. “But please, let’s sit down. And tell me everything.”

Upstairs, it was easier to hear the clanking of stilt-walkers in the street outside. There was another noise, like artillery, barraging one of the buildings at regular intervals. Particularly strong hits sent shudders through the ground that rattled the glassware in the apartment. Frankly it was a wonder all of Brass Street hadn’t disintegrated into rubble, from the sound of it. All of this, Jessamine registered in the background of Cecelia’s tale.

“I—I heard Mr. Havelock talking to Samuel after the gunshot, threatened to toss him in the river too if he didn’t do as he said,” she was sliding her palms across each other slowly, absently, with her elbows on her knees as she sat on the lone sofa in the former-sitting room. “Then Ms. Curnow arrived, out of breath – I think she had run all the way from the tower. Mr. Havelock gave Lady Emily to Ms. Curnow and told her to take her to bed. Too much excitement for one night, he said. He said he had come down to the shore to speak to Samuel and his pistol misfired – an accident, and a fortunate one, because no-one was hurt. Poor Emily was screaming for her mother all the while, but something she said – I don’t remember what – made Corvo react. He lunged for Havelock, and things got chaotic for a few minutes. Piero and Mr. Sokolov were arguing with each other, I’m not sure how that started, but Lord Pendleton asked Wallace to put Corvo somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone – the kennels, I think. I tried to have a look, but the door was locked.

“We thought that was the end of the chaos. But the next day, as we were packing up everything from the pub, Lord Pendleton said it was time for our bonus. Lydia didn’t trust it one bit. She grabbed the shotgun from behind the bar, the one she hid from the Admiral and his friends. I don’t know what happened exactly – ran for my hideout as soon as I realised something was going on. But I heard shouting, gunshots.”

Jessamine peeked through the curtains, regretful of Cecelia’s flinch as she did so. “How can you be sure Havelock has Emily?”

“Overheard the guards talking,” she held onto her own arms, like she was huddling against the cold – and it might well have been chilly in the apartment, but Jessamine thought the gesture meant something else. She amended, “Arguing, more like. One wanted to know why the court wasn’t crowning Emily now, instead of letting Havelock take a regency. They were of the opinion that they’d already suffered though one Lord Regent already, and didn’t need another.”

“How does Havelock intend to make himself regent?” she recoiled.

“I don’t know, ma’am. I’m afraid the court is… a bit beyond me…”

It hadn’t really been a question for her, just a thought that came stumbling out due to the absurdity of what she had just said. Hundreds of questions crowded her mind. Instead she remarked, “You didn’t mention Martin.”

Again she sounded apologetic for something out of her control when she said, “I didn’t see him, ma’am. He might have been there on the night of the party, but he didn’t say anything. I saw him in the morning – brought him his tea. But he wasn’t there when they got the servants together. Maybe he didn’t agree with what they were doing, and left.”

“Maybe…” she said, not wanting to dash this small bit of optimism that seemed to have survived in Cecelia. Maybe he had had some revelation of morality, of principal. Or maybe he had gone ahead to make preparations for their new plan. Martin always had a contingency. Havelock’s _ad hoc_ behaviour was probably well-accounted for, if it hadn’t been outright banked on.

The full picture of what had happened at the Hound Pits became… if not _clear_ , then significantly less murky as she took stock of the courtyard. A piece of artillery that seemed akin to the missile launchers she had seen affixed to watchtowers was the piece causing the barrage – aimed, it turned out, at Piero’s workshop. A pair of patrolling guards complained at how long it was taking to break the philosophers’ defences, and their officer reminded them that they couldn’t just level the place. They needed to interrogate the men before they could be executed. So, the two of them were holed up together. Jessamine might be surprised if the Watch didn’t breach the workshop only to find that the pair had bludgeoned each other to death with copies of their own books.

There were two corpses in the courtyard. Lydia and Wallace. She badly wanted to search the kennels for Corvo, but there was only one entrance into the building, and she couldn’t risk being spotted on the way in when Corvo was unlikely to be in shape enough to fight his way out. She still had more to accomplish in the pub before she could make her escape, chiefly finding out where Havelock had taken Emily.

She fished the arc pylon blueprints from the bin in the Admiral’s room while she was looking for a clue to his intended destination. If he meant to capture the philosophers and their work, what had he discarded the blueprints for? Say what you would about Hiram, at least he’d planned ahead. Arresting Corvo and attempting to get him to sign the confession – he knew the intricacies of the court, knew how quickly favour could turn if he gave it a chance. He had outsourced his assassinations, even if he hadn’t kept the paper trail to quite enough of a minimum. She wondered how the Admiral intended to explain why the Spymaster’s conspirators had been tracked down in a pub that had Farley Havelock written on its lease. There was a notice on the bar’s main entrance about its closure for the plague, and he’d signed it with his own name.

In her and Corvo’s room, she found a collage that had been tacked onto the wall with great care. It had three figures in it, instantly recognisable despite the artistic liberties; on the right, Corvo, with his dark hair and rare bright smile, while on the left, Jessamine stood, with her long black hair and bright blue eyes, and in the middle their daughter, wearing her favourite winter cloak and with her hair spiked and messy rather than carefully brushed. All three of them brandished swords in front of a huge, pale structure that was clearly Dunwall Tower. The note explained the better-than-average composition – Corvo had helped her make it. She must have put it up the night of her return to Dunwall Tower, as a surprise for when she came back. Only she’d never got to see it.

However, someone had taken her coat upstairs. It was folded neatly over the chair the same way it had been the night Emily arrived at the Pits, as if she would be expecting to find it there on any other morning – perhaps Cecelia had taken it upstairs for her, during the party. Before it all went wrong. She checked that all of the knives that were homed in it were still there, as well as Emily’s drawings, folded neatly inside the hidden pocket over her heart. Everything was in order, and she donned it once again.

She flitted across the bridge to Emily’s tower, trying to draw as little attention as possible, and tested the handle of the door. Locked. Her Void-gaze revealed a shape inside, sitting on the edge of one of the beds. She seemed to have her face in her hands, and there was a faint sound coming from inside – she had been crying, but caught her breath and held it when she heard the handle. “Callista, it’s Hana,” she hissed through the door.

The lock clicked, and Callista was pulling her inside the tower and into a tight embrace before Jessamine could object. She was babbling slightly into her shoulder, “I can’t believe you’re alive, they killed everyone, Hana, they killed everyone to cover it all up and then they took Emily with them and they left, I couldn’t do anything to protect her…”

_"They pulled the child from her arms. Oh, the curses she spat at them! Emily banged her head in the confusion. They dragged her crying into the waiting boat,”_ the Heart sounded mournful. Even more so when he added, quieter, _“She called her father’s name."_

Callista sat down on her bed, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her gloved fingers. “Something changed in the Admiral as soon as the loudspeaker broadcast the Lord Regent’s confession. It had been building up, but I thought it was just tension. The campaign was coming to a close, and there was a lot on everyone’s shoulders. The men were whispering late into the night while you were out doing the real work, but I thought, what’s it got to do with me? I was caring for Emily. Pushed all other concerns from my mind.”

“It’s not your fault, Callista,” Jessamine said, sitting opposite her on Emily’s bed. Because what else could she say? That she should have fought harder, kept Emily from Havelock at any cost? The way she once tried to fend off an assassin with a lucky jab in the throat and a pearl-handled pocket knife? The way Corvo had tried, when Emily screamed that Havelock killed her mother, to at least avenge her, and had been locked up like a dog for his troubles? Lydia’s ghost flitted behind Callista’s eyes, too. Ms. Brooklaine had certainly been courageous, arming herself with bar rifle and confronting a military man who had infinitely more credibility than her, even in a disgraced position.

Part of her wanted to know how it happened. She might even owe it to Lydia and Wallace, who’d looked after them here. Even when Wallace was stuck-up and Lydia was a shameless flirt, they had breathed the life into this place. They had made it home, a little bit, for Jessamine and Emily and Corvo. She squeezed the Heart, and he whispered, _“Lydia’s father taught her to hold a gun. Sometimes it’s the only thing rowdy military men will listen to. Not Havelock. He dismissed her, one last time.”_

_And Wallace?_

_“He didn’t have a chance to draw a sword, in the end.”_

Callista showed her the flare launcher that Samuel had left in the window of the tower. He had told her to use it to signal him when she could get away safely. “I wanted to try and free Corvo, but I… didn’t have the courage…”

“Is he still alive?” Jessamine leaned in, almost sickened that she had to ask, but her heart soaring at the mere suggestion of it. She didn’t know what she would do if the answer was _no_. She didn’t think she would be able to bear it.

“Guards keep going into the kennels – to jeer at him, I believe. It can’t be pleasant for him, but I think… I think he’s still alive.”

That was going to have to be good enough. She learned that after Lydia and Wallace had been killed, Anton was the one to slam closed the shutter at the front of the workshop, then the balcony shutter. There had been some commotion as Pendleton threw his lunch back up trying to find the spare key for the door on one of the servants’ bodies, but it hadn’t been found. Probably because Jessamine had taken it weeks ago. Without the time to begin his own siege of the workshop, Havelock had told Martin and Pendleton to get Emily to the location they’d arranged – despite what had been said in the past, it seemed Havelock was perfectly aware that Samuel’s boat was not the only way out of the Hound Pits, at least as far as Martin was concerned. Callista hadn’t been able to see which way they went.

Anton and Piero were discussing the formulas of their remedies while crouched under the workbenches. If it had originally been in fear, all such worries about the continual barrage against the workshop had dissipated in favour of intellectual discussion. “Not interrupting, I hope,” she said, knowing full well that she was, and that if she didn’t, they would continue like this for hours yet.

Piero hit his head off the underside of the bench.

“Ah, Jessamine! Good to see that you still breathe,” Anton greeted, getting out from under the bench and doing a lazy bow.

“Yes,” she said dryly. “No thanks to our dear friend here.”

Piero looked pale as a corpse. He was rubbing the back of his head as he got up, and his eyes, made little by his glasses, were wide in horror and disbelief. If it wasn’t enough that the woman he’d poisoned was back from the dead, now he found out that she was… “Y-you mean to say—” he stammered, unsure whether to address her or Anton, “I mean—is that-? Are you-?” Jessamine didn’t normally approve of people prostrating themselves against the floor in reverence of her, but she didn’t stop Piero when he did so. “Your Imperial Majesty,” he said, and she could almost believe it was humility, and not fear.

“Oh, get up, man,” Anton said, “Her Majesty has more important things to do than listen to you grovel.” He turned to her. “For example, finding the remaining measurements for our new arc pylon. When the final formulae are in place, we can add the whale oil and have every Watchman in the street fall to their knees.”

It was a uniquely Sokolovian blend of respect and insubordination. Despite herself, she’d missed it. “I suppose you mean these blueprints,” she produced the papers, and he clapped his hands together once in triumph, taking them off her hands to finalise the pylon, explaining its mechanisms all the while. All arc pylons had a varied intensity setting – it was just that his clients tended to choose the more (he cleared his throat) lethal settings. With this model, he could increase the range of the pylon without the radius affecting the intensity. Apparently, prototypes had been killing the targets standing closest, incapacitating those in moderate range, and for the people on the furthest edges, doing no more than making their hair stand on end. Piero had rather ingeniously resolved the issue.

Throughout this explanation, Piero looked rather like he wanted to fall backwards into his door to nowhere and disappear from her gaze. He still had a rather sickly pallor to him. Clammy hands. She tried not to feel satisfaction at the sight of him trembling under the knowledge of his treason, for spite was not a good colour on an Empress. But it was difficult to resist. She got a particular gratification from knowing that his dreams of being named Royal Astrological Metaphysician, having a free pass to inhumanely experiment on her subjects, were crumbling before his eyes. It had been most of his reason for joining the Loyalists, as far as she could gather. To take advantage of the Empress’ good faith and favour.

“Here,” Anton said, holding out the charger to her. She laid her hand on it, felt the static electricity run through her, making the hair on her arms and neck stand on end. He next offered the charger to Piero, and said, “All that remains is to place the final whale oil tank in its socket.”

Jessamine raised an eyebrow. “And what about Callista and Corvo? Are we to render them unconscious and leave them at the mercy of the Watch, also?” Cecelia was omitted purposefully – it seemed she rather referred to fade into the background, and Jessamine couldn’t deny it was for good reason.

“The charge won’t reach the kennels. But Callista, I had forgotten. Very well, you may take the charger up to her, as well.”

She sighed. Already she was tired of his attitude. He was too used to talking to her as Hana, and enjoyed it far too much. She was not his _lab assistant_. But they could talk of this later. After she took a tank of whale oil up to the roof of the workshop, she jumped onto the walkway and took the charger to Callista. If it wouldn’t reach Corvo, then it also wouldn’t reach Cecelia, so she let that be the end of the charges. Anton and Piero allowed her the honour of turning on the pylon, most likely in part because the charge knocked her onto her back.

While the men gushed over their own work, she could delay going to Corvo no longer. She ran across the courtyard, between the tangled metal and limbs of stilt walkers and Watchmen who would most likely wake with concussions and stiff muscles. She tapped her Marked hand to the handle, heard the lock release and flung the door open, ignoring the smoke brimming from her fingertips.

Corvo didn’t raise his head when she entered, or when she spoke his name. For a horrible, heart-pounding moment, she saw how still he was, curled in the corner of a cage for dogs, and thought she was too late. She used her Mark again to open the arena, and crouched down in front of him. The shallow breathing she could hear behind his hair was the only thing that ensured her words came out at all. Never mind that it was cracked when she said, “Corvo, my love. I’m here. No ordinary man may keep us apart when extraordinary ones have failed already.”

His eyes were red and puffed, but not wet. He must have run out of tears a while ago. There was apprehension, then disbelief, elation and despair, and a thousand other emotions which there were no words for. He signed none; instead he used his hands to take her in his arms, clutching her shoulders close to his chest, and breathing shakily into her hair. When he needed to be sure of her face again, he took it in both hands and touched their foreheads together, locking steel blue eyes with rich black-brown. When he pressed his lips to hers, it was more than a kiss. It was a bond, a promise, a renewal of vows. She kissed him, felt the rough stubble under her hand, and it was like she could feel the red thread of Izrese myth taut between their fingers. They wore no wedding bands, but they had their red thread, linking them for all eternity.

“Where’s your cane?” she asked, hooking a strand of hair behind his ear. He pointed outside the cage, to the chest by the door, and she retrieved it for him. He stayed on the ground floor level to search the bar, while Jessamine returned to Emily’s tower to signal Samuel.

“I’ll be okay,” Callista assured her. “Just go.”

“I expect you to report to Dunwall Tower for Emily’s first lesson when this is overwith,” she said. “Your uncle, as well. I’d like to commend him for his service to the crown.”

She had forgotten, with Piero’s revelation, that not everyone knew she was Empress, but although Callista looked somewhat taken aback by the sudden appearance of the High Court accent and the hard-to-miss implications of her identity, she merely bowed her head and said, “Of course, ma’am. It would be my honour.”

The bar turned out to be what told them what they needed to know. Havelock’s orders to Captain Manning had been, in summation, to extract whatever they could from Piero and Anton, neutralise the “conspirators” that remained, and then bring the advanced arc pylon in all its pieces to Kingsparrow Island, where Emily was being cared for until the obvious security breaches at Dunwall Tower could be dealt with.

Kingsparrow Island. She could have guessed it – a key stronghold for Gristol’s Navy, the island from which attacks on Dunwall had been consistently fended off for hundreds of years. It had gone through multiple generations of fortress, and from the sound of it, Hiram had taken it upon himself to renovate the place. If it was full of as much scaffolding as Dunwall Tower, Jessamine thought Havelock might as well have picked a country house fifty miles from the city to fortify, but then, he had built most of his identity on being a Navy man. He’d go mad without a body of water in spitting distance.

“Cecelia?” she called into the apartment she had made her hideout. She looked in all the rooms and down the stairs, but found hide nor hair of her. There was, however, a note. The handwriting was atrocious, and the spelling was worse, but as she made it out it read:

> _Your Majesty Miss Jessamine,_
> 
> __
> 
> _I'm going to make a run for it. I think that if I hadn't met you, I wouldn't be brave enough to try. I hope you find Lady Emily and Lord Corvo and return home. I would like that and I think the Empire will be better if you do. I hope we meet again someday._
> 
> _Cecelia._

She read the note to Corvo. She had wanted to ask Cecelia to stay with Callista, come with her to Dunwall Tower. She was a resourceful girl, could take care of herself, but Jessamine had seen what the streets of Dunwall were like right now. The plague didn’t care how resourceful you were. Nor did the rats. She wished she had a way to contact her – just send a little message on the wind. A return of “Good luck” if nothing else. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that Cecelia had deduced her identity. Nor that she had kept it to herself.

Samuel had a beaming smile when he saw her and Corvo approaching the _Amaranth_ on the shore. “I can hardly believe my old eyes,” he exclaimed. “It doesn’t pay to bet against you, does it, Majesty? Good to see you both on your feet.” He helped them both onto the boat. “Where are we headed, ma’am?”

“Kingsparrow Island. That’s where they’ve taken Emily.”

“Right you are. S’pose you’ve been hearing the loudspeaker announcements?”

“We’ve been busy,” Jessamine said, racking her brain. She must have heard some making her way from Rudshore to the Old Port District – why was it such a fog?

“Course, beg pardon,” he nodded. “Havelock’s back at his post – actually higher, Admiral of the Fleet now. Rumour has it he’s angling to make himself Lord Regent, even styled himself as such in an announcement. Not official yet, mind you. Meanwhile Lord Pendleton’s making moves to become Prime Minister, get that running again since Lord Estermont’s passing.”

Corvo hooked his finger to show a question and made the sign for ‘Overseer’ – index, middle finger, and thumb pinched together making an oval around the face, then thumb and index separating to form and dramatic curved frown, like the masks of Holger – then clasped his hands together in an ‘M’. “What about Martin?”

“That fella Yul Khulan is still High Overseer,” Samuel said. “But as I hear it, Martin’s got a fancy new title. First Liaison to the Abbey of the Everyman, or some such.”

Not such a new title – just one that Campbell had never bothered to appoint someone to. He rather enjoyed coming to Dunwall Tower personally to talk to the Empress, and take advantage of the Royal Physician’s presence to get his portrait painted. The Liaison was a good position for Martin. Not as high profile and high accountability as High Overseer, but in close contact with a great deal of important people.

“Well, they’re not the only people we have to contend with. I learned…” she had no idea how to phrase it. “Delilah has returned.”

Samuel looked to Corvo, who signed the obvious question. “Who?”

How to introduce Delilah… She was already talking as she considered the impossibility of doing her justice in a concise manner. “A powerful witch. I have reason to believe she has a coven operating out of the old Brigmore Manor in Mutcherhaven. When I was a girl… it sounds silly, but there was this scullery maid, Ms. Copperspoon. Her daughter Delilah and I would play together and I just know… I just know it’s the same Delilah.”

“And what does she want, Ms. Delilah?” asked Samuel.

She sighed. There was only one answer she had, as much as she didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to admit that her friend could be so motivated by such a thing. She said, “Power.”

There was silence in the skiff. Delilah told her about an old wives’ tale once – “My ears are burning,” she would sing, when she suspected she was being talked about. She did just seem to appear sometimes. When accused of hiding, of spying, she would simply say that she was practicing the soft-stepped walking of a kitchen staff apprentice. Servants were to be unseen and unheard. Jessamine, meanwhile, had learned how to broadcast her status with the sound of her shoes.

“There’s a ship called _The Delilah_ owned by a Bundry Rothwild, down on Slaughterhouse Row,” Samuel said eventually, to break up some of the ice that she felt setting in. “Quite a history, that boat. I believe it was sold to him by Sir Arnold Timsh after his lover, for which the fair ship was named, disappeared.”

“I can’t imagine Delilah setting up with a City Barrister.” _Let alone Arnold Timsh,_ was the half of the sentence she didn’t add.

“Powerful people, barristers,” he shrugged.

Samuel was right. Barristers who also happened to be baronets were especially powerful. One couldn’t leap immediately to deposing empresses; one had to have friends in high places first. Perhaps a partnership with Timsh had opened up a new, more elevated opportunity, and she had left him despairing over a vanished love to pursue it.

_Whatever’s become of Delilah_ , she thought, finding it too bleak a notion of voice, _I just hope for her sake she doesn’t get in my way_.

Jessamine felt Corvo tap on her leg to get her attention, and when she was looking, he signed, “How are you?” Although Cosme would have interpreted it literally, what he actually meant by the question was obvious to her: _What happened the night of Hiram’s fall?_ and _How did you get back here?_ and _How do you feel, in whatever sense feels relevant?_

So she told him. At length, in detail, from her poisoning and the dizzying unmooring of her powers to her encounter with Billie at the Chamber of Commerce. After that, things became vague. She tried to recall how she had passed through Rudshore Gate, but all that came to mind was the dim light and potent smell of the sewers that took her from Rudshore’s outskirts to the Old Port District. She felt she had encountered someone there – or was it just rats?

The Outsider had spoken to her. “Strange how there's always a little more innocence left to lose,” he had said. She must have found a shrine. Trying to picture the room that had been cast in purple light by his lanterns, she winced at the headache that was returning. Corvo took her hand, letting her know it was alright to stop. It was comforting as always – almost enough to sap the pain right out of her.

Oh curses to the Void, it was sapping the pain right out of her. She didn’t separate their hands in time enough to stop a faded impression of the Mark from appearing on Corvo’s skin, identical to hers. He blinked at it and flexed his hand in surprise, testing the symbol with his fingers. She had come across this concept – apprentices to warlocks receiving a piece of their power, like Daud’s Whalers, like the witches’ covens of old. Like Granny Rags and her dear ward Morris Sullivan. An arcane bond.

Corvo put his hand on her knee, bringing her eyes back up to meet his. “Give half to me,” he signed. She had only just told him of how her powers seemed to be getting harder to control, to contain. No chance he would forget, or believe she had it completely managed on her own. He wanted to find Emily as badly as she did, so let him take half the load, half the burden. They could be more balanced, a better team, if they shared the gifts the Outsider had given. It was an attractive offer.

“That’s not fair to you,” she said softly. “I’m not—Corvo, I’m not really _alive_ any more. I can’t ask you to give a piece of yourself to the Void. I won’t.”

“I don’t give it to the Void. I give it to you.” He held out his hand, where the ghost of the Mark faintly inked his hand. In the moment that followed, she could almost feel the upcoming fork in the river that was the world, waiting for her choice to determine what was to come. She clasped his hand again, letting their foreheads touch, and watched the Mark glow blue, like a flame fuelled by whale oil. He lifted her chin with his fingertips, tearing her eyes from the brand. He kissed her, a simple and kind gesture meant to take her mind from the Mark burning into his skin. She closed her eyes. There was salt on their lips – whether from sea air or forgotten tears, whether from Jessamine or from Corvo, it didn’t matter. It felt as if two different heartbeats were synchronising into one.


	16. Painted with the Same Brush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessamine and Corvo infiltrate the Lighthouse in an attempt to rescue Emily from her kidnappers.

Morning-dusk was lighting the sky by the time Samuel rounded the Leviathan’s Teeth cliffs that obscured their approach and Kingsparrow Island came into view. The Lighthouse looked more like a giant penthouse of steel and glass, balanced atop a pillar. The light itself looked like it had been a hasty late addition, to justify the name. That made sense, from what she knew; the Rivermouth Lighthouse fulfilled its actual function, while Kingsparrow Island was more of a strategic fort. This lighthouse was a deterrent for invading forces, a signal that someone was watching, someone was ready, more than a warning to passing ships. According to Samuel, it had been pencilled in as a retreat for the Loyalists early on, by the Admiral. He had planned to use it during his unsuccessful coup d’état of the Navy. He was the kind of man to hold onto his plans. To be rigid to the breaking point. She supposed that was why she had been unacceptable to him – she was not, by any means, who he had planned on recruiting.

“Only one way up to the Lighthouse,” Samuel said, as they approached the shore hidden from the fort by a large outcropping of rock. “You’ll have to get through the fort and the gatehouse. The Admiral’s got his fleet around him again. It won’t be easy. All I can say is it’s been an honour serving with you both. I hope when all this is over—"

“Wait,” Jessamine interrupted, and stood up in the boat as it came to rest at the water’s edge. There was a kind of charge in the air, a thousand times stronger than the aura before a storm. “Something’s wrong.”

“What?” Samuel said.

She looked at Corvo, and saw he was uneasy too. “I don’t know. But it feels off.” She shivered to free herself of the feeling momentarily. She stepped off the boat and offered Corvo a hand to help him, while saying, “Thank you for all of your help, Samuel. I hope you will come by the Tower, when it is open for visitors again.”

He smiled. “It would be a pleasure. Good luck to you, Majesty. Lord Corvo.”

As the boat pulled away and disappeared between the rocks once more, Corvo squeezed her hand and took up arms. They had distributed the weapons between them – Jessamine kept the sword, the wristbow, and the knives. Corvo had taken a sword from a fallen guardsman, and had the crossbow and pistol, as well as his cane. And, of course, they shared the Mark.

There was a watchtower grinding and groaning on this side of the island, sweeping its spotlight over the A wing. They glanced at each other, and Corvo nodded. The Mark burned to its full brightness on the back of his hand as he set his eyes on his target, and just when she was about to advise he take as much of a running jump as he could manage with his leg, he vanished in a blink of light. The tower’s grinding halted abruptly, and she looked up to see that he had already removed the whale oil tank from its compartment. He leaned against the railing of the watchtower with his forearms, hands clasped together, and grinned at her.

When he blinked back beside her, she muttered, “Show-off,” and he shrugged, taking his cane back from her.

They chose the beach-side entrance in preference to crawling through the waterworks on the harbour-side. Waves lapped the shore, wind whistled through metal struts and braces. Gulls cried far above. But there were no footsteps to be heard. No coughs, grumbles, or anything else indicating human life.

Jessamine was getting to dangerously close to jinxing them by asking where all of the guards were. They’d seen not a coat, not a button, in either navy, sky, or crimson. Her Void-gaze was useless – there was Void-stuff everywhere, floating around in the air like dust in a shaft of sunlight, but it congregated around no forms. Her uneasy feeling grew, now with a rationale to support it.

Were they at the wrong place? Had Havelock abandoned Kingsparrow Fort in favour of some other strategic position? For a brief and shameful moment, she wondered if Samuel had betrayed them, bid them wander around an abandoned fort while the Loyalist men wrested control of her Empire back in the city. But she had been the one to request he bring them to the isle, and she and Corvo had read the orders from Havelock’s missive personally. They ought to be here.

“I hate to say it,” she said in a low voice, when they stood in front of a deactivated wall of light, “but that doesn’t bode well.”

Tucking his cane under his armpit for a moment, Corvo made a series of signs, although he looked as sceptical as she felt. “Maybe the oil ran out?”

Unfortunately, the truth was not so benign. The missing guards could be found in the courtyard. Their fates varied. Some sat or stood mesmerised, staring blankly into some unreachable distance as the tailor Mr. Keating had done. Others were petrified in tangled thickets that had wormed their way from the gravel. Others had been dismembered or torn in half, as if mauled by some animal.

Corvo tilted his head slightly and walked to get a closer look at something lying on the ground – it seemed to be a skull of some kind, with a long snout and sharp teeth like an Overseer’s wolfhound. There were others like it, littered about the courtyard. When Corvo approached, there was a _whoosh_ and the skull lifted from the ground on its own. Strings of muscle and meat appeared from nothing to construct a skinless neck, shoulders, legs—Corvo shot the thing with his crossbow before it could finish forming itself and its screech was cut short as its flesh folded back into the base of the skull, which returned to the ground lifelessly. He lifted his cane, activated the mechanism to make a short, thin blade _shing_ out of the bottom, and brought down the point into the top of the skull, which promptly shattered into pieces.

That wasn’t the end of it, though, as the other skulls had awoken at the same time, not baying like wolves but screeching like owls. One was running and jumping at Jessamine by the time she could turn to face it, and raising her sword did no good – the hound clamped its jaws around her arm, and any attempts to shake it off made it sink its teeth further into her flesh. Corvo struck the beast on the head with the heavy top end of his cane, making it loosen its grip, and she slammed her heel into the empty skull when it dropped, raising her Marked hand at the same time to cast a barrier around Corvo. The hound that had launched itself at him bounced off the shield and shook its head, disoriented. She threw a knife that hit right between its eye sockets, and Corvo finished it off. They got into a rhythm, eliminating the gravehounds one by one, until the courtyard was quiet again.

Her skin itched as the gashes on her arm sewed themselves back together. “Well, that was—”

There was a _fwp_ sound, and they both ducked behind cover. Crates of arms and ammunitions, unopened and half-tucked under a steel platform. They were in shadow, but there was a chink in the crates that allowed them to see the witch – long, dark brown hair adorned with flowers, with white ivy-like veins crawling across her skin. Corvo glanced at her questioningly, and she shook her head. Not Delilah.

“Oh, Rosebud, your poor brothers and sisters. Let’s see… no one has escaped. There must be an intruder. Can you sniff them out, my girl?” The gravehound at her side put its bone snout to the ground and started to search. Jessamine pulled the Mark from Corvo, drawing its full strength into her own hand, and stopped time. She dealt with the hound, while Corvo used a Tyvian choke-hold on the witch.

“More will come,” she said, and he nodded. They jumped or blinked to the next level up, but then were given pause. “Can you hear that?” she asked, and he nodded again. Bickering. Coming from the prison block, and distinctly un-witchlike.

“This would never have happened if you had just stuck to the plan.”

“Are you talking to me, or to Havelock?”

“To you, Martin!”

“Ha! Havelock is the one who shot our assassin in plain view of the Empress. How’s that for planning? If you’d _consulted me_ about your plan maybe you wouldn’t have got a duff poison from Piero instead of—” Their voices began overlapping

“Forgive me for not trusting you not to go off-book and make your own decision about Hana—”

“Perhaps if I had been able to make a decision, we wouldn’t be in this mess, seeing as that’s what you _hired me for_.”

All three of the men were now talking at once. The Heart trembled in her pocket – almost a giggle, although his voice wasn’t filled with humour when he said, _“Listen to them. The Loyalists. Esteemed men of the Empire. They had such high aspirations.”_

Corvo grabbed her arm as she moved to enter the room, his brow furrowed. _Are you sure?_ She signed, “I have to face them,” and he nodded, though reluctant, releasing her arm.

The men were bound to chairs by vines, and were arranged in a triangle facing out, spaced enough apart that they couldn’t reach each others’ hands. Martin did a double take as she entered through the doorway. Pendleton had his back to her, oblivious, and when Martin threw his head back and laughed, Treavor flinched in his seat at the harsh and sudden sound. Havelock, meanwhile, kept his stare level at her.

“What are you laughing about?”

Seeming almost close to tears, Martin sighed, “Oh that is just priceless.”

Treavor twisted his head from side to side, but couldn’t see her, only managing to glean from the shape in the corner of his eye that somebody was in the door. “What? Who is it?” he demanded.

“Who do you think it is, half-wit?” Havelock broke his gaze from her as he spoke, and returned his head to its forward-facing position, tilted back slightly as if reclining. “It’s Hana.”

“Farley,” Martin’s speech was still peppered with laughter, “how do you think your men would feel about their Admiral being unable to kill a _very_ intoxicated individual at _very_ close range with a full magazine in his pistol?”

“I don’t think you should be praising a woman who clearly has been using black magic to dupe all of us,” he scowled.

He sobered at last, but his tone remained conversational. “I praise nothing. Hana, if it’s not too much trouble, can you either release me, or stab your sword through my eye? Even the latter would be better than listening to these two bicker any longer.”

Funny. But she didn’t have time to entertain them any longer.

“Don’t leave us here,” Treavor protested as she made her exit. He sounded pathetic. “The witches are sure to kill us!”

“That’s no great loss,” she said. It was a mean thing to say but not, she thought, especially cruel, under the circumstances. Leaving the Loyalists at the witches’ mercy was, in many ways, more generous than their notions of how to deal with Corvo and herself had been. As she made this justification to herself, she pondered that she hadn’t heard the Heart suggest anyone’s fate recently. Perhaps, somewhat bleakly, he thought she was doing fine at it on her own.

“I can help you navigate the Lighthouse,” Martin offered.

She gave him a look that she hoped conveyed that she wasn’t born yesterday. “We’ll manage alone.”

“I have no doubt, but that could take time. Time Emily might not have.” His proposition settled uncomfortably between them, and Jessamine looked to Corvo. He seemed uneasy, but deferred to her judgement. Martin was slippery. It was a risk.

Every moment she spent debating this drove his point home further. She produced a knife to saw through the thorns binding him, and threatened, “Do a thing to make me doubt you, it’s a bolt through the eye.”

“Naturally,” he acquiesced.

“What about us?” Pendleton cried, when she made no indication of untying the other Loyalist men.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth. Let’s go,” she said to her company. Martin straightened his cuffs as they emerged onto the walkway – from this position, it was plain to see that the wall of light protecting the gatehouse was still active, its rotors spinning. The witches must have reprogrammed it. In the courtyard below, more women had appeared.

“Stay alert, sisters. An enemy moves among us.”

“Martin, get us through the wall of light, don’t care how. Corvo,” she nodded to the side, and he needed no further instruction. He would flank the witches once she had their attention, and they would quickly even the playing field.

She vaulted the railing and landed in the courtyard with enough speed to take the first witch by surprise with a knife to the shoulder, but enough featherdance not to hurt herself. The witches’ skin became mottled with green like they were crawling with ivy and moss, and the flowers that adorned their clothes became more vibrant. They threw thorns as big as javelins that appeared from their hands, and they kept trying to surround Jessamine, making it difficult for Corvo to use his advantage.

Feeling she was about to be penned in and turned to stone or some other such unpleasantness, she tackled one of the witches to the ground. She felt instantly that she had made a mistake, being pricked by thorns that seemed to be growing out of the witch’s very skin, and her arms and legs being tangled in vines that had been conjured to hold her. Her hands were pinned, unable to reach any of her knives, and she could feel the briars starting to grow around her, knew it was a matter of time before she got a thorn to the eye. The witch was grimacing in her face, almost snarling, but Jessamine’s futile attempt to draw back did catch in her eye a pin in the witch’s hair. With the limited range of motion she had in her left hand, she teased it out, twisted, and jabbed the pin into the witch’s neck. There was an unpleasant gurgling sound in her throat, and the thorns slackened around her.

She almost wished she could crawl back inside the thicket when she saw what was waiting for her on the outside. Corvo had made his move, taken down one of the other witches, but the fourth and fifth remained – along with what they had raised from the ground. It was a mass of stone and dirt, bound together by magic. The spell’s paint could still be seen on its body, jumbled as the ground it had been drawn on deformed itself into a body.

Jessamine and Corvo exchanged a glance and she nodded. He disappeared in a blink and began to fight the witches while she faced the creature that was pulling its giant fist back for a bone-crushing punch. She summoned the Mark and met the creature’s blow with her own, trying to use her ricochet to reflect the force back on it, and she went reeling backwards, wrist stinging with a nasty sprain. The monster was slow to recover, enough time for Corvo to render both remaining witches unconscious, but it didn’t show any signs of disintegrating back into rubble or giving up on the fight.

Corvo tried to knock its feet from under it, and he was batted clean into the air, skidding across the cobblestones and landing close to Jessamine.

She heard the sound of a glass bottle rolling, and a whale oil tank came to rest at her foot, from the direction of the gatehouse. She wasted no time, picking up the tank in both arms and taking a deep breath. She needed to apply the right amount of force – too much, and the tank would explode in her hands. Launching it with her shoulders, using her ricochet right at the tips of her fingers, the tank arced through the air in a streak of blue light, and collided with the creature.

She dived for Corvo and cast a shield around them, her face buried against his chest, as debris rained down. When the patter of pebbles and glass stopped, she lifted her head and saw him smiling. His chest hiccupped slightly with a silent laugh, and she caught it from him, let her cheek rest against his chest for another moment.

“You’re welcome,” said Martin, his arms crossed at the entrance to the gatehouse.

The golden statue of Hiram Burrows that had stood in the atrium of the Lighthouse had been toppled. There were cracks in the floor under his shoulder, and his proud sneer looked pathetic from this angle. In its place was a white stone figure, a much more humble material perhaps, but the sculptor knew how to use it. Each thorn, each leaf, was rendered with absolute precision as the creeping plant wound around the woman. There were visible veins in the hands and neck, wrinkles on the face, and hairs appearing slightly out of place atop her head. Jessamine might even have suspected Delilah of turning a living person to stone for the trouble, if it weren’t a self-portrait. The Delilah of this statue was sharp and cold and scheming, as she had been when she invaded Jessamine’s dreams.

Kingsparrow Island thus far had been draped in the Olaskir red eagle that Hiram had adopted. She supposed Havelock hadn’t had a chance to order new hangings to reflect _his_ regime. Perhaps a navy blue albatross? But regardless, the witches had torn down or defaced everything in the Lighthouse that symbolised Hiram.

Upstairs, the planning room had taken on the appearance of an artist’s studio. It was filled with diversely-sized canvases propped every which way all in different stages of completion, sheafs of paper chock with sketches covering every surface. She could feel the smell of oil paint, charcoal, and graphite infusing her very clothes the longer she stood in it, but she was entranced by the studio. “Emily…” she said softly, because there was no mistaking the subject of almost all the artwork.

She was mapped in 360˚ with pencils, pastilles, and charcoal, ranging from pensive Princess to giddy little girl. Some of them were mere impressions, the shadowy silhouette of a young lady sitting properly with her hands on her lap, red haze about her head. One or two smaller paintings had vibrant strokes of paint on top of the sketch, turning Emily’s dark hair into a full rainbow bleeding out into her surroundings. There was one of the big canvases that felt almost alive despite the rough lines of the sketch; Emily was sitting with her feet hanging off the edge – of what, she couldn’t tell from the drawing – and beside her was the vaguest suggestion of a bunch of flowers that she had her head turned to face. It reminded Jessamine so strongly of two weeks ago when she had seen Emily sitting on the rocks at the Hound Pits’ shore, setting flowers on the water like boats for fairies, that she almost thought to herself that she must talk to the artist and get the finished painting for Dunwall Tower’s gallery.

But not all of the works in progress were of Emily. Some, although also depicting a dark-haired little girl with royal airs, were of Jessamine as a child. There had been some attempts to render her as an adult, most of them abandoned before detail could be added. There was a copy of the commonest etching pinned up, a twenty-year-old Empress looking over her shoulder with a severe expression and a tower of hair that would regrettably become her signature hairdo. Delilah had made several attempts to copy the etching in her own style. In every single one, she had added the beauty spot that was missing from the original.

Most were on the small side and restricted to drawings, not paintings, but there was one canvas taller than Jessamine herself that seemed to be fully rendered. It resembled Anton’s portrait of her that hung in the music room of Dunwall Tower in composition, but it was much more heavily rooted in the style of abstract impressionism. Geometric shapes coloured the background, bleeding into each other and the subject in the foreground. She peered at her painted face - her eyes were steel blue and piercing. She had her chin lifted up, not quite a smile on her lips.

No, that _was_ a smile. It hadn’t looked like one at first—

Two pale, bony hands snatched her lapels and yanked her into the painting. She let out a surprised yell, heard the lantern clatter to the floor, and then felt her stomach flip as she tumbled into the Void. Her knees hit black slate, and she tried to keep up with the jolt, ground herself and stop her head from spinning. The way back to the Lighthouse had folded itself out of existence as she fell through it, leaving her alone against the non-sky.

“Delilah!” she shouted.

It wasn’t fair. She was far too good at hide and seek. Jessamine had found Florence and Tuney _forty-five minutes ago_ and Florence had had to go and attend to her other duties before she found Delilah. She just knew she cheated with the servants’ passages – they were off-limits to Jessamine, and therefore an unfair advantage in games, so they had a rule against them. A rule that Delilah seemed to have no trouble breaking whatsoever. Tuney had gone to investigate some likely spots that Delilah might be hiding which Jessamine was not allowed in. She couldn’t risk it herself this time, because Mr. Belville had sent someone from the Guard to make sure she didn’t try to get out of her impending High Tyvian lesson.

“Dee…” she whined.

“Have you checked behind the window seat in the east corner?” suggested the guard, who was probably trying to be helpful, but who was mostly just getting on her nerves.

“A _thousand times_ , Philippe,” she said, and pulled back the drape by the nook to demonstrate the spot’s vacancy.

This, of course, was where Delilah popped up from behind the chair and said, “You aren’t very _good_ at this game, Jessie.”

“Enough of this!” she waved her hand, her adult voice restored, as if aiming to disturb the reflection in a flat pond. The Void’s chill settled on her skin again as the memory was dispelled, and Delilah sat on the tall-backed throne from Dunwall Tower. She was reclined in it, her elbow propped on one of the arm rests, the embossed crown at the throne’s top appearing to sit askew on her head. Seeing her in the flesh was uncanny – the resemblance to both her dream counterpart and her statue was exact. But this Delilah had a pulse, had a breath. Had eyes that moved minutely, calculatingly, across Jessamine’s face.

“Delilah…” she said, unsure what words she intended to follow it.

“Yes, Jessamine?” she replied. Perhaps she had learned something from Sir Arnold Timsh, because it was perfectly businesslike. This was not to be a reunion between friends.

“You’re alive,” she said finally.

“As are you,” she cocked her head with a smile that was not warm. “When news reached me of your death, I thought… what a gift the Outsider had given me. After you forsook me, left me to rot in the slums of your precious Dunwall, that he would save my life – and not yours. What cosmic justice, I thought. I could take the throne that was denied to me, at last. Everything was going according to plan, and then Emily… dear, sweet Emily. She said something so funny about the assassin who rescued her. About you.”

She took a step towards her. “What have you done with her?”

“She’s perfectly safe and perfectly out of your reach,” she responded, getting to her feet with languid grace. “She is to be _my_ heir. It would be cruel to cast her aside, after all.”

It was said so pointedly that Jessamine could not overlook it a second time. “Delilah, what are you _talking_ about? _You_ left the Tower, I had nothing to do—”

With an angry flick of the wrist, Delilah summoned an image, its surface wobbling like paper sitting atop the ocean’s waves. The painting was expertly rendered in hues of pink, purple, and orange. Even if the man standing between Jessamine and Delilah in the tableau had not been recognisable immediately by his bald head and sour face, the way he was bent at the waist was so evocative of their former tutor that she would have known who it was if that was all she had drawn. Mr. Belville always emphasised the importance of looking into someone’s eyes, usually in order to discern if they were telling the truth. Jessamine and Delilah had both got very good, very quickly, at lying with conviction.

_“It was her! Delilah’s lying – she broke it.”_

Delilah never bent her head as it was bent in this rendering. She always stuck her chin up, dug her heels in. When she apologised, she did it properly, but she was never meek.

“What did you _think_ would happen when you threw me to the wolves?” she hissed now, her hatred calcified in the years since their parting.

She thought this was unfair. Ichabod Belville had hardly been a wolf – more like a proud peacock. “We’d been in trouble hundreds of times before,” she protested, not even sure if she remembered this particular incident. Had they broken something shortly before Delilah and Sofia Copperspoon had vanished from the Tower? Or was this some trick, some tale to trap her and trip her into guilt?

“Not that year,” she waved her hand, and the image shattered into shards like a mirror. When the glass rearranged itself, it was to show another tableau, this time in dark blues and pinks. Young Delilah stood in the foreground, her hands clasped in imitation of their governess. Mrs. Blondeau had been meticulous about decorum, and she held her hands like that when she was idle – letting their arms swing about or crossing them over their chests was unladylike. Delilah was demonstrating her perfect manners to Father, who was half-turned away to the distant clocktower in Parliament Square. He had his hand raised in dismissal of Delilah, telling her, _Next year, I promise._ The young Delilah inside the tableau was oblivious to her future self’s rage and spite, spitting her words as a warden announcing the date his charges would face their executions. “That year I was daddy’s perfect little girl, because he _promised_ to take me to court if I was on my best behaviour. He promised I’d have my Lord Protector at the end of the year.”

In the tableau, Euhorn and Delilah were surrounded by flowers, almost comically. Endless bouquets in pale white and pink flowers, filling the hall. Delilah’s birthday. She was so distracted by the painting’s detail that she almost didn’t register what she said. “Your Lord Protector?” she repeated.

“The one you stole from me.” And there was a painting for that, too. In front there was Corvo rendered in pink and yellow, frozen in motion. His sword was drawn, he was mid-whirl. He looked young, but more like a young man than the boy he had been when he competed in the Tournament for the Lord Protector. Wishful thinking on Delilah’s part. If Corvo had been competing when Delilah was twelve, he would have been the same age. A pre-pubescent Lord Protector – _that_ was truly unprecedented.

But that wasn’t important. Delilah was talking as if she were a real princess. As if she had a father who could take her to court, and promise her the moon, and name her the heir of his estate. As if that father was Euhorn Kaldwin. As if it wasn’t just a game they used to play – secret sisters. Because didn’t they have the same blue eyes, the same dark hair, the same sweet tooth? And wasn’t it fun to keep it secret from the maids and Mrs. Blondeau and Mr. Belville, to whisper late into the night about their plans for when Delilah was Empress?

_(“Why do you always get to be Empress?” “Because I’m the oldest, Jessie. That’s how it works.”)_

“Delilah…” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Are you my sister?”

If Delilah had been angry before, what flashed across her face next was beyond description. For a moment it was nothing more than slack shock, and then it was not just fury, but the pure, unbridled destructive power of a tropical storm. Sand-filled wind that could strip a person to the bone, lightning snapping like a whip every minute starting new blazes, and rain lashing down in bullets. Delilah screamed, and Jessamine was knocked backwards, clean off her feet. She hurtled into the Void’s vast expanse with her ears bleeding, and though her eyes were bone dry, when she opened them she could see the platform they had been standing on getting smaller and smaller as it receded into the distance.

She was adrift. She looked around for something she could featherdance to, anything; some chunk of pavement with a flickering street lamp sticking out of it, a boat becalmed in the tideless sea, the endlessly unfurling purple drapes that hung themselves around Outsider shrines. Instead, she flew past loose bricks and shadows engulfed her. After a while, in the dark, she could no longer tell if she was moving, or if the Void’s wind was simply whipping at her. The Mark’s light caught on her skin, and there was black slate gleaming ever so slightly in the dark, but never the same moment-to-moment, and never close enough to grab.

“Outsider?” she called. “Are you there?”

There was no answer. She couldn’t say she was particularly surprised; he had to get bored of fishing her out of the depths of the Void eventually. But she must find her way out with or without his help. Corvo and Emily were waiting for her. So far her featherdance had served her well, but perhaps it was time to try something new. The Whalers’ transversals didn’t require a line of sight to their destination. If she could picture where she wanted to be in her mind…

_Fwp._

It felt as if she was plunged in ice, so cold it burned, all over her skin. Black smoke was pouring off her, but she had solid ground beneath her. She was in the throne room at Dunwall Tower, with big slashes taken out of it and replaced with shining Void slate. The throne was empty, and Delilah was nowhere to be seen. She felt something dribbling over her lip, and touched her nose. Her finger came away with the not-black not-blood, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand, realising that the burning sensation had also smoothed away the stinging pain in her wrist.

“Delilah?” she called. Then, “Outsider?” Again, there was no response.

Only there was _something_ – a little noise, like a rat scurrying around in between the walls. She tried to find the creature, if for no other reason than that she had never seen another living being in the Void, except for the whales, who kept their distance. She stepped carefully, quietly, but the rat still ran when she got too close, scratching and scuffing the crawlspaces it called home as it bolted.

“Wait!” she called, and ran after the noise, hopping over missing floorboards that gave way to nothingness and ducking around a candelabra that was floating in her path. When she righted her gaze past the obstacles, a short shout escaped her as she almost toppled over the little boy who was standing in front of her.

He was unfazed by the flail of her arms as she tried to balance herself in a most undignified manner. His hands were clasped behind his back as a page boy standing at the ready, brown eyes looking up at her expectantly. He had white-blond hair that he had tried quite valiantly to tame into a combed-back and professional style, but there were a pair of stray strands hanging over his eyes.

“Atticus,” she said, and it took an extra moment for her to remember where she had plucked the name from. He had appeared in her dream alongside Fabian, and she had been sure she recognised him – not in the way she recognised Fabian, mind you. He had been summoned into her dreaming mind to be Delilah’s squire because that was what he did in Dunwall Tower in real life. Whereas Atticus had never been a page for her, she was sure. Perhaps a stable-hand, or one of the kitchen boys…

“This way, Miss Jessamine,” he said, and his identity slammed home. She reached for the Heart, and found instead that the boy’s chest glowed. She still felt its beat, like it was within her own pulse, but he wasn’t just a Heart any more. He gestured for her to follow with quick little hands and repeated, “This way.”

He was a touch taller than Emily, skinnier, and although she had taken him for a page immediately, he was wearing the scruffy clothes she had found hidden beneath the Outsider’s shrine in the Old Port District. He opened a door that she was sure hadn’t been there before she blinked and started down the spiralling stone staircase behind it. When the room opened out again, it was in a long, jagged black-slate passageway.

Atticus produced a purple-flamed lantern from nowhere, and the echoes began.

_“My mother is sick. She needs help,”_ came young Delilah’s voice.

_“Your mother kicked off while you were out begging.”_

There was a pang of guilt in her chest for that, a sense that she should have known, somehow, when Sofia Copperspoon had died. Father had said she was sick when she left the Tower – whether or not that was true, the Royal Physician would have tended to her if Euhorn had only asked. Jessamine thought of her own mother, who at least died in comfort with the assurance that her daughter would be cared for. If Father had only cared…

_You don’t know he didn’t care,_ Jessamine reminded herself, although she didn’t know he did, either. And either way, Sofia had died and Delilah had been left alone on Dunwall’s streets. Not orphaned, but forsaken by her father and grieving for her mother. It was no wonder her heart had got twisted up against the world.

They walked past other jagged windows into the past – or the future. Most of the time, she couldn’t tell. Servants spoke about matters of the house, commoners wept over the recession, children shouted amongst themselves. There were screams, far-off and agonised, or perhaps anguished. Perhaps both. She increased her pace, eager to put behind her this suffering that she could do nothing to change, but then—

_“One more push, Majesty, you’re almost there.”_

—and she _knew_ that voice, like gravel in the throat. She wasn’t used to hearing it bare, without its sardonic edge, but there was some sense-memory that meant she recognised it instantly. Even if she hadn’t had the energy to decipher the feelings contained within it then… Anton had been tired too. Wrapped up in her own exhaustion, she hadn’t noticed.

She found herself holding her breath until Emily’s first cries punctured the veil, and she heard a sigh. A collective one from the room, most likely, Nina the midwife and Anton and all the guards straining their ears to the door, including sweet, nervous Corvo, but it sounded like the Void itself was exhaling in relief. The Jessamine of the past was laughing, or sobbing, or both, breathless. She didn’t remember that. She remembered when Corvo was finally allowed in the room, when Nina could be persuaded to leave her charge for a moment so that Jessamine, Corvo, and baby Emily could have a private moment. The awe in his eyes as he took the bundle into his arms, cradling her to his chest and taking in her scent. His first – but by no means last – wordless _I love you_ to their daughter.

She felt a tug on her sleeve, and found Atticus hanging onto her jacket with a severe expression. “Miss Jessamine,” he said insistently.

She obliged her determined guide and started off again. She hadn’t quite meant to stop walking. It would be easy to get lost here, if lost was the right word. Experiencing her life from a distance like this was tempting, the false promise of outside objectivity. What nuances had she lost to faulty memory, what whispered words could she illuminate from this vantage? This was either a spymaster’s dream, or his nightmare. Jessamine tried to block out the echoes, keep following the purple-wreathed silhouette of Atticus in front of her.

The jarring sound of her own voice stopped her again. _“Who are you?”_ she asked, a phantom beyond the turbulent storm-clouds of the Void. It was a shaky question, followed by more of the same, increasingly desperate. _“Why did you bring me here? Can you help me find my daughter?”_

There was a beat of silence. Then Atticus whispered abruptly, vacantly, “This city is built on the bones of the great ones.”

She remembered this. The first day, wearing the clothes she was buried in, bare feet squelching in the mud. Feeling small in front of a shrine surrounded in elegant drapery and bathed in eerie purple light. Murmurs reaching her ears that sent chills down her spine.

She wets her lips and tells herself, “Ghosts tread the old paths. Lines of power. Follow them. _Follow them_ , Jessamine.” She hears her sharp intake of breath on the other side. She feels something shifting, the slate under their feet rumbling and grinding, the sound of whistling wind somewhere close. The snippet of the recent past is slipping away. Urgently, she adds, “Listen.”

The floor falls from under them. She shouts for Atticus, and finds his hand with hers, pulling him close to her chest. She closes her eyes and wills the Void to rearrange itself around them. When the sound of tumbling stone peters out to pebbles on mountains, they touch down softly. Jessamine cups his face to check he’s okay – he looks rattled, but the Void is no discomfort to him. He grips her hand tightly, and his fingers squirm but don’t let go. She has to wonder how long it’s been since someone has given the boy a hug. If he’d ever had one, even.

“This way,” he said, much quieter than before. But when they started moving, he prompted them faster, with a few anxious glances upwards. She followed his steps and his gaze, and saw that the slate they’d been standing on had transformed into shards entwisted in thorns, hanging over them like stalactites or knives. Perhaps Delilah had gotten bored, come to find her.

She felt her hand itch, and looked at the Mark. It was a bluer glow than the usual yellow, and seemed to be tugging on something. Her heart, maybe. “What does this mean?” she held out her hand to Atticus, and he looked between it and her blankly. She felt another tug, and a familiar feeling in her chest. The feeling sparked by Corvo’s smile, by the way he was in candid moments, by the way he nuzzled into her neck in his sleep. Corvo was pulling her back to him.

There was another memory on the wind, High Court inflection coming through in the irritation of the noble woman speaking. _“If I had left it to you, you would only have delayed yet again,”_ she said. Another feeling clamped Jessamine around the heart, some concoction of shock, grief, delight and confusion. It was her mother’s voice, sharp and commanding – before her illness made it croaky and hollow. The voice of queen-consort Beatrix Kaldwin. _“All these years I have had the_ decency _not to say anything about this girl – but promising her a Lord Protector, Euhorn, really. It was the final stroke, it truly was. You cannot expect me to believe that the ruler of the greatest empire the Isles has ever seen is incapable of controlling one child, a_ kitchen girl _of all people—"_

The Void puckered and vanished like it had that night from the Boyle party, and she found herself back in the Lighthouse. Their arms were entwined, their Marks fading at the same time and Corvo’s hand came to her shoulder while his eyes searched her face for any hint of injury or distress inflicted. She meant to tell him that she was okay, that Delilah had done her no harm, not yet, but no words came from her mouth when she opened it. She was too shaken by what she had just heard. By what it meant.

It seemed that Delilah was right to hold a grudge against Empress Kaldwin. She just wasn’t correct in which one.


	17. Black Swan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Empress reclaims what is rightfully hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: death

Nicole Kaldwin, self-styled the queen-mother when her son was crowned Emperor, had been no fan of Jessamine’s playmates, and it had been no secret. She could find fault with every one of Jessamine’s ladies-in-waiting over the years, and when Beatrix died, she had taken up the baton of attempting to bar Jessamine socialising with her second cousin Isabeau DuBois, whose mother was from a well-respected Serkonan family but nevertheless unacceptable company for a Princess. She had always had a particular dislike of Delilah and her mother, but when asked, she said that it was simply a matter of the estate and had no wish to argue with Euhorn any further about the matter (as he had brought Sofia and her daughter with him from Kaldwin Manor when he was coronated, along with many other servants). Jessamine had thought there had been some incident in the distant past. She didn’t imagine…

Well she _did_ imagine, didn’t she? All those games about secret sisters, hidden princesses. She perhaps hadn’t considered the mechanics, that her father had had a hushed-up affair with the Kaldwins’ scullery maid a year before he took the throne. That Jessamine’s mother – and, if she was remembering Nicole Kaldwin’s character accurately, likely her grandmother as well – had taken it upon themselves to remove the inconvenient proof of iniquity from the Tower at the first sign of trouble.

It had been easier to blame Father, in a way. Tidier. If he alone was responsible for the affair, the stringing Delilah along, and then her eventual ejection from the Tower, she at least would have had an idea of what to feel about it. As it stood now, she didn’t know what Euhorn’s feelings on the matter had been. Maybe he had really intended to let Delilah have a Royal Protector, become Princess, if only he could conceive a way to convince the court. Perhaps he had learned of Delilah and Sofia’s expulsion too late to stop it.

Whereas Mother… In her memory Beatrix was a loving mother, a woman who wanted what was best for her daughter, even if it occasionally meant returning her to her lessons instead of letting her sneak into the kitchen for treats before teatime. And she still was that; that was the most jarring thing. The picture of her mother that Jessamine kept contained no contradictions with the version she had heard in the Void, the ruthless queen-consort bitter about her husband’s bastard, willing to do anything to secure her own daughter’s place on the throne.

It was useless to dwell on this. Her parents and grandmother were long dead, and knowing how they felt about Delilah twenty-five years ago would help no-one. The Copperspoons had still been wronged, Sofia was still in her grave, and no revelation was going to stop Delilah from believing she was entitled to the throne.

Besides which, Jessamine had a coven to fight.

Curling, snapping briars sprung from nothing to try and ensnare them, and thorns whistled at them from all directions. The witches flashed from place to place, leaving behind autumnal leaves and black ash, so that they couldn’t be sure just how many they were fighting. Some of them had skin that suddenly dappled green, like they were crawling with moss and lichen.

Jessamine and Corvo were backed against each other, her using her ricochet to deflect what she could, while he blocked thorns with his sword. They were being penned further and further in, and soon the thicket would be so dense they wouldn’t be able to see the walls on any side. A huge, twisted briar slunk towards them and reared like a colossal snake, and she cast her eyes down automatically as if it were a basilisk able to kill with a glance. She swept her arm around, summoning a thick mist that gathered around her and Corvo, pulling it tight to them like a blanket. The briar’s screech as it dove for them hurt her ears, but it bounced off the barrier and hissed unhappily.

“It won’t hold long,” she said over her shoulder, and saw him nod in her periphery. Jessamine noticed the skinny, sneaky briar snaking across the ground towards Corvo a split second before it lunged for him, and she steeled the Mark, like taking a deep breath before plunging underwater. The next instant she was standing in his place, and the briar was writhing, its point embedded in her thigh.

She screamed and grabbed the branch with both hands, knuckles going white, and summoned the Mark on her hand to turn it to ash. When it crumbled in her hands, she chased it, turning it all to dust like poison in the roots. She spread far and wide across the room, destroying the witches’ forest, and when one of them dared to get in her way, she dove at her and pinned her to the ground. The screech that came from her then was far from human, and it startled her so much that the shadows swirling her form tumbled back from the witch, returning to the shape of a woman.

“Tilda!” Another witch blinked beside her fallen friend, and knelt to cradle her. Her eyes snapped up to Jessamine and she screamed, shrill and piercing and blasting her backwards with a powerful gust of wind. As Jessamine stumbled back, she saw a flash in the corner of her eye and suddenly the screaming stopped – Corvo had his sword to the witch’s throat.

He murmured something in her ear before he squeezed his arm around her neck to render her unconscious. “ _Lo lamento_ ,” from the way his lips moved, his remorseful expression. For a moment Jessamine was perplexed about what he could be apologising for. The witches had taken Emily, had almost killed them, and he couldn’t have hoped for the same sympathy if the positions were reversed. But the way he set her down next to her sister made it click. The witch had been defensive on behalf of her family, just the same.

He leaned on his cane, exhaling, while she began to inspect the décor. “We must find Emily. She could be trapped in one of the paintings.”

She heard his uneven steps coming to stand behind her as she scrutinised the paintings with her Void-gaze, tried to discern which of them were portals. She expected the gentle touch to her shoulder to get her to turn around – she did not expect him to tug her handkerchief from her coat pocket and wipe her upper lip with it. Another nosebleed. She hadn’t noticed. When he was finished, he curled her fingers around the kerchief and, keeping his eyes on hers, pressed a kiss to her hand. Her ring finger, just where the wedding band would be. She almost wished she could pretend she _didn’t_ understand his meaning; in sickness and health, in joy and sorrow. May all their burdens be halved as they shared the weight of them. To love without reservation, until death did they part.

No. Longer than that. Until the Void devoured all the lights in the sky, and then a day.

He handed her a vial of Piero’s remedy, and she swallowed it. She hadn’t noticed the tension behind her eyes until it was smoothed away. Her headache cleared enough that she remembered a chasm of information between them, everything she had learned in the Void. Before she could begin explaining anything, she heard footsteps.

“I’ve found her,” Martin announced, entering the room carrying a huge frame.

“Where have you been?” she said, irritation taking over from her initial relief that it wasn’t another witch.

“Hiding,” he said, as if it were obvious and he could not have been expected to do anything else. “This one was in the bedroom.” He turned the canvas around to reveal a stunning rendition of an oak tree stranded in the Void, with Ancient Cebryran architecture warped and floating around its little island. Its leaves curled like green flames into the black sky, which was dripping down, swallowing the light mist beneath it.

She frowned at him. “What makes you think this is the one?”

He pointed to a mark beneath the tree’s branches, and on closer inspection, Jessamine could see that it was a child sitting on a swing. Silhouetted, but you couldn’t mistake her. Emily.

She picked up a lantern and was about to light it when she realised it had smashed in several of the panes. Instinct told her that was important, and she discarded it. “Martin, go and secure the lifeboat bay. Once we have Emily, I want to get off this rock as soon as possible.”

He considered these instructions, always looking for an angle. He said, “I’ll need a gun.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t take one off a Watchman in the courtyard, it makes me dislike you. Go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave a courteous nod that might’ve passed as a bow if she liked him enough, and scurried away.

As she searched for an undamaged lantern, Corvo gave her a look. She had used her Empress voice on Martin, and his not-quite-bow indicated he’d noticed. He was sharp enough to have put it together by now anyway, and she wasn’t helping things by not addressing it outright, she knew. Until she did, he could always claim he didn’t know who she was, without the disadvantage of that being the truth. But that wasn’t what Corvo’s look was about; he could see she was running scenarios in her mind, planning the manoeuvrings of Dunwall Tower in advance. _One thing at a time_. Or, more accurately, Emily first and everything else second.

“Corvo. It’s quite crucial that you know, before we go any further, that when Delilah and I played as girls, we used to pretend we were sisters, only… well, she believes it was real. She believes she has a claim on the throne.”

He brought his hands together in front of his chest to sign, but seemed to think better of it, and his fingers tangled together as he was momentarily lost in thought. When it passed, having chosen the right words, he signed, “Is it true?”

“I don’t exactly have it in writing,” she winced. Things weren’t official in Dunwall Tower unless they were put in writing or came from the Empress-Regent’s mouth. What she had eavesdropped from the Void was neither, but she couldn’t dismiss it, like her courts could, as the ambiguous words of a dead woman. The implications were too weighty. “But I think so.”

He accepted this information with a thoughtful nod, while she lit the unbroken lantern she found at last.

“Ready?” she asked, holding the violet flame up. Corvo took her hand in assent, and they melted into the painting together. The Void’s chill greeted their bones, and he shivered beside her. She squeezed his hand and said softly, “Come on.”

They hopped over the ruins, rounding the tree’s massive trunk, and after a few moments, they looked at each other as they both heard at the same time – laughter. Emily was swinging, whooping as she careened back and forth, almost brushing the leaves above her with each swing.

“Emily!”

She twisted around and gasped. “Mother! Corvo! You’re alright!” Without the swing slowing by any meaningful degree, she stood up on its seat, turned to face them, bent her knees—

“Emily, no!”

Too late. Already she had launched herself from the swing, arcing through the air with a delighted scream, and landing in their open arms. She giggled, wrapped her arm around Corvo’s neck, and kissed his cheek.

“Emily, that was _awful_. Don’t you encourage her,” she warned Corvo, who was getting dangerously close to grinning, and promptly forced himself into a serious nod. “Don’t you realise you could have got really hurt?”

“Not really,” she said as she put her own feet beneath her again, seeming to find this chastisement unnecessary and unfair. “I’ve been here in dreams before. If you fall off the edge, you come right back up.”

“You’ve been here before?” she blinked, as Corvo signed the same thing.

She looked around thoughtfully. “Well, not to this bit with the tree. But yes, I think so.”

Jessamine could hash that out with the Outsider later. She took Emily’s hand and said, “Come on,” turning back towards the edge of the archipelago of stone.

She resisted slightly. “Delilah promised to tell me about the witch of the Zontani Sea, and the leviathans of the depths. Can’t we stay?”

“No, we can’t,” she answered severely.

“How rude,” Delilah said. “I had an appointment with my dear niece.”

She had stepped in front of them instinctively at the sound of her voice. Delilah was perched in the tree, hanging onto a sturdy branch as she posed there in her high-heeled boots. Without taking her eyes away from her, Jessamine said, “Corvo, get Emily out of here.”

“I don’t think so.” Delilah jumped down to the ground with several hops, almost cat-like in her grace. She stalked towards them in that manner as well, ready to cage a sparrow in her claws.

She didn’t flinch from the glower. “I don’t care. This is between us.” Sensing that Corvo had not moved from where he was, she said, “Corvo, go. You can come back once Emily is safe.” When he still didn’t move, she turned around, and gasped. They were bound by branches and brambles, flowers stuffed in their mouths. Emily’s eyes were wide and weepy – as were Corvo’s, as he desperately tried to twist out of his restraints. Not only that, but stone was creeping up his legs, rooting him to the spot. Turning him to a garden ornament.

“You’re right, Jessie. This is between us,” Delilah said, and her tone was so strong that it put a bitter taste in Jessamine’s mouth.

There was something wrong, though – Emily wasn’t turning to stone like Corvo. Jessamine narrowed her Void-gaze and saw that the stuff that gathered around Emily was swirling around her, condensing in places as it went to deflect Delilah’s attacks. All at once Jessamine realised that the Void’s presence around Emily wasn’t the Outsider’s doing, but her own. Her Void-taint, steeped into what she had returned from the dead for.

Delilah pulled the briars further up around Emily until she had flowers over her eyes and a stem binding her mouth, and then lunged at Jessamine. She had talons at the end of her fingers, not nails, and they almost scratched clean through her coat, as well as sending a warm trickle down the side of her face. She was shoved against an ancient stone pillar, Delilah’s snarl in her face, but it gave her something to push against, and for a moment she gained the upper hand in their wrestling match.

“Let them go!” she demanded, with her half a spare breath.

“No,” Delilah sneered, and thrust her arm upwards. A bloodbriar twisted itself out of the cobblestones and around Jessamine’s leg. She pulled on the Mark and forced it to crumble to ash, lifting her sword to deflect her next attack – her nails had hardened into dark points like thorns, seeking to shred her. The thorn-nails acted as sword and shield both, refusing to snap or bend, instead producing an unpleasant scraping sound against the blade of Jessamine’s sword.

She countered Delilah’s next attack with one of her own, and felt the sword draw across her face, like striking a pen over a page and causing a jolt of ink to stain the paper.

It was hard to tell whether the hit shocked Jessamine or Delilah more. Delilah dabbed her fingers to the wound while Jessamine was washed with a feeling of regret. “Delilah—" she started to apologise while anger flashed in her eyes, as if to pre-empt her running to their nanny to tell on her. This called for the complex bargaining of sisters who would keep adults out of their affairs at great cost, unless of course they were the victim in this particular case.

Branches and brambles surrounded her again. As it twisted and hardened around so that it looked like she had been grown into the tree over decades, never moving, Delilah snarled, “I will take my rightful place on the throne, Jessamine, and I will tear down everything dearest Daddy built and start again. Even his bridges divided the poor from the wealthy, controlled by tolls and men who can beat and kill with impunity. No one will have to beg and scrape as I have – except for the high-born leeches who condemned Mother and I to the muck, that is. Every one born to grace and nobility will have it all stripped away as it was stripped away from me. You will all know how it tastes. Starting with you.”

She felt something tickle her throat and coughed – a pink petal came out, followed by more of its kind. She choked out Delilah’s name again as best she could.

“There’s nothing you can say,” she snarled.

She spat, ridding herself of another petal and taking advantage of her momentarily empty mouth to say, “My mother threw you out of Dunwall Tower.” Delilah paused. No more flowers grew in her throat.

She had the look of somebody who suspected a trap, but was taken over by a ravenous hunger for knowledge. “What?” she enunciated, just as they had been taught.

“I heard it from her own lips, here in the Void. She wanted you gone. She thought you were a threat to the succession – a threat to me, I mean. So she had you removed, at the earliest convenient excuse. I had no idea.” She wanted to stress this point further, but something in Delilah’s expression dried the words up.

She was silent for a long moment, in which it was almost possible to see the little girl Jessamine had played with in the Tower. It was them against the grown-ups again, unified in the oppression of schedules and decorum and Mr. Belville’s High Tyvian lessons. Then she spoke, and little Dee Copperspoon was gone, replaced by a witch who’d rather let her heart rot a hole in her chest than turn her back on revenge. “You think it makes a difference?”

“No, I don’t,” she said. It was honest, and all the more tragic for its honesty. “But I thought you should know the truth.”

She laughed, cold and bitter and regal. “The truth, dear Jessamine? Now that’s funny.”

“We never did have the same sense of humour.”

Delilah’s face softened, and for a moment Jessamine thought that despite everything, she might relent. Then thorns buried themselves further into the skin of her arms, and she realised that it was artificial – that Delilah had started to change. Her cheekbones and jaw took on a rounder shape, and shiny black waves tumbled from her roots down to her shoulders. She wiped away the dark shadows around her eyes, and tapped a finger delicately to her upper lip – Jessamine’s beauty mark appeared there.

A hundred thorns yanked from her flesh as the briars unwound themselves. Her limbs were dead weight, bloody and limp. Her blood was red again, vibrant as the old rose garden, smeared across her skin. She smacked her head against Void slate when she crumpled, and cold oblivion embraced her.

.

..

...

Atticus’ whispers found her in the dark. _“Miss Jessamine,”_ he said.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she was cold and stiff and bloody. The Void whistled overhead, rustling the leaves on the great oak, and stone splintered and cracked. Her blurred vision focused on Corvo, freeing himself from his stone prison and falling into waiting arms.

“Oh, Corvo!” Delilah exclaimed with stolen voice. “It’s alright. It’s over. Delilah, she… she tried to take my face, leave me here in the Void. I wasn’t sure I would be able to free you… but it’s alright. Everything’s alright now.”

Her skin crawled at the sight of her laying her hands on Corvo, using him, deceiving him. She hadn’t felt real jealousy in her entire adult life, but now it was filling her lungs, rising up her throat. She was choking on it. Cold eyes swivelled to pierce her as she grunted and strained to sit up, even to crawl over to Delilah’s feet and tear her from Corvo that way. “Don’t touch him,” she snarled, and it was spitting with venom.

“It’s over, Delilah,” she said, and a thousand nobles balked behind the Void’s thousand eyes, because in that moment Delilah was Nicole Kaldwin’s granddaughter, no doubt about it. “There is nothing you can say or do that will change what happened. You can’t just take things because you believe they should have been yours in another time, in another world.”

The way Corvo was looking down at her… what was that? Pity. She had become the object of pity. Everything she could have said to prove to him that she was his Jessamine drowned and died in her mouth, coating her tongue with rot and bile. He put his hand to Delilah’s cheek, and she wanted to vomit, she wanted to close her eyes and recede into oblivion. She couldn’t watch this…

She couldn’t look away, either. Delilah laid her hand on top of his, almost melting into the touch. “My Corvo…” she said.

“ _No_ ,” Jessamine forced out from her gut, a horrible wobble in her voice, but neither of them broke their gaze from each other. Dark, keen brown didn’t flicker her way. She was losing him. Losing him to a world that would hurt him, in the end, because one day he would find out about Delilah’s deception, and he would realise he had unknowingly invited into his heart a cuckoo.

With a softhearted expression, he moved to brush a strand of hair out of the false Jessamine’s eyes – and instead his nails slashed slantways across her face. He dropped his careful mask as he scraped away Delilah’s, and she screamed, doubling over to hide her true face behind her hands. Fury and disgust flickered through him like a candle flame through tarnished lantern glass as he glowered at her, and he continued to watch her out of the corner of his eye as he extended his cane and approached the true Jessamine.

He knelt down, though it was awkward and pained because of his leg, and didn’t try to help her up right away. They ought to have been worried about an attack from Delilah, that she would take the opportunity afforded to her by their moment of tenderness to wrap them in thorns or steal Emily away again, but time seemed to grant them this moment – the clouds slowed their churning, whales quieted their song. He took her hands and helped her to her feet and then kissed her cheek with such softness that she almost didn’t feel it, though love surged through her heart at the motion. She felt as if a piece of herself that Delilah had stolen had just returned to her.

They turned together, arm and arm, to face the witch. Her voice was hoarse and booming when she demanded, “How did you know?” It was fury and distraught confusion broiling in her chest. Her perfect plan, her flawless disguise, unravelled by… what?

Corvo tapped beneath each eye with his index finger. _Your eyes_.

“We have the same eyes,” she snarled, locking them with Jessamine’s. A beautiful steel blue, like the sea beneath and overcast sky. Jessamine could have been born with Beatrix’s gold-flecked grey, or Cyril’s hazel-green. Instead she shared with Delilah the eyes of Euhorn Kaldwin, and their great-grandfather Jacob Kaldwin. But Delilah – hers weren’t the cool steel of an Empress. They were a frothing sea, an icicle trembling in a gale, all those bittersweet memories clashing together with tumultuous rage. And they had been too focused – she didn’t spare a glance to Emily, still trapped in briars.

“We don’t,” Jessamine said. “Not anymore.”

“This isn’t over,” she started to raise her arm, and the wind picked up again, the tree’s branches bending and cracking in the gale. The briars she bound Emily in began unfurling, twisting stiffly in Jessamine’s direction instead.

Corvo went to their daughter, made sure he was the first thing she saw when her senses returned, and offered his hand to her as if he were a footman helping his Lady from a carriage. She embraced him. Jessamine said, “Yes, Delilah, it is. The question is whether you’re going to listen to me, or if you’re going to force us to kill you.”

She looked genuinely taken aback for a moment. “Jessie…”

“Yes, Dee?” The old nickname was incongruous with her tone. Formal. She couldn’t have mustered her childhood affection for Delilah even if she was willing to try. Her own voice reminded her of the way Delilah had appeared in her dream, the Duchess of Redmoor in the receiving room, near-unannounced. _Hello, sister._

Delilah’s expression hardened, her hands glowed as she cast them above her head—

Then Corvo appeared behind her, and there was no _lo lamento_ in her ear. He was courteous enough to make it quick, but even he couldn’t rouse enough sympathy to apologise for this death. He eased her to the ground as gently as his injury would allow.

Emily dived into Jessamine’s stomach, clutching her tightly around the waist. She crouched down to hug her properly, and heard sniffles as she drew away. Emily wiped her nose on her sleeve, and Jessamine tutted affectionately. She looked to Corvo, whose expression was open, as ever, to her every request. She had a feeling that he understood what she wished before she opened her mouth to say, “Please take Emily to the lifeboats. I will join you there shortly.”

“Are you alright, Mother?” Emily clung to her arm with both of hers for a moment longer.

She smiled, and it was laced with a feeling that she didn’t want to examine the intricacies of too closely. “Yes, don’t worry, darling. Mother is fine.” She stroked her cheek in parting, and she and Corvo nodded at each other before he opened his arm to hold Emily close to his chest, and they departed back to the world of the living.

Jessamine was left standing on a broken patio, underneath a black sky. Corvo had propped Delilah against the trunk of the oak, with her eyes closed as if she were sleeping – if not for the hole in her chest, Jessamine might have believed she’d spring back to life in a moment.

The Heart thrummed softly in acknowledgement, but he said nothing. She had the distinct impression that there was nothing left in Delilah’s body to comment on. She was an empty shell.

She felt she ought to do something, say something, but nothing felt appropriate. An apology was less than useless to Delilah now, and Jessamine didn’t have the right to give her a familiar kiss on the forehead. Not after two decades apart. Not after today. She picked her sister up behind the knees and the shoulders, and she weighed almost nothing. Granted she was strong with the Void, and Delilah had always been skinny and delicate – Sofia had called her a little nightingale, hollow-boned and sweetly singing – but she felt as if she were trying to hold a cloud, liable to vanish at any moment.

“Atticus? Can you lead me, as you did before?”

The purple glow of his lantern announced his arrival, coming into view from behind the tree, and he beckoned her over. Between two of the tree’s thickest roots, there was an opening where the patio slabs had been broken away, and a tunnel burrowed under the tree. It seemed almost designed to make you slip, and Jessamine slid down into the bowels of the tree on her behind, still clutching Delilah close.

There was an ornately-carved spiral staircase winding up the inside of the trunk, and Atticus led her up it. His lantern wasn’t the only source of light – there were some sort of bioluminescent orbs, like huge whale oil droplets, clinging to the walls on the way up. There were birds and insects chirping – or she thought they were birds and insects, until a hollow in the dark brought a group of glimmering dartfish flitting about her.

After several minutes, light started to diffuse down the steps, and a cloudy sky of grey came into view. Stepping onto the last stair, she was hit with the sensations of the seaside on an autumn day, salt and brine and gently lapping waves. No warmth or laughter, no seagulls looking to pillage the lunch of some unfortunate picnickers. The water was black and still and vast, and it rippled under Atticus’ feet as he walked on its surface.

There was a silhouette just visible in the mist, a huge tower, that they were walking towards. Voices cried out, echoed and faded, seeming to call from just beyond the mist, and she wanted to help them, wanted to run to them and take them all with her back to the living world, but Atticus’ path didn’t deviate, and she’d learned her lesson by now.

The tower was the Lighthouse, parts of it blown out and missing, opening it to the elements. He stopped at the tower’s base and turned to her. This was as far as he could take her – even without words, without so much as an apologetic expression, she understood that from his eyes.

“Thank you, Atticus,” she said, bowing her head slightly and feeling it wholly inadequate. After a moment, she shifted Delilah to her shoulder and wrapped her free arm around him, pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Thank you for everything. You be good.”

With hesitant hands, he put his arms around her middle. After a moment, he squeezed.

She climbed to the top of the Lighthouse and found the planning room, filled with canvasses and sketchbooks and a lump of stone that was half-hewn into a bust. The display was different to the one on the other side of the Void, its carefully-curated portfolio of Emily and Jessamine. This was messier. There were drawings of witches, drawings of nondescript nobles – the details on their clothes in particular. Flowers, everywhere. Both on the page and off – though the live specimens that had been studied had withered and died. There was a painting of that, too; the wilting flowers.

She lit a purple lantern, and watched the paintings come to life. Witches laughed amongst themselves. Birds fluttered and tweeted. The leaves on the trees swayed in the breeze. A young Jessamine and Delilah peeked around the door of Dunwall Tower’s kitchen, Sofia Copperspoon pretending not to notice as they crept closer and closer to the tray of biscuits that had been left out to cool.

“What is it?” asked the Emperor, sounding much younger than Jessamine could picture him. Her firmest memories of her father now were of him sick, his voice aged years beyond the ones he had. But even before, when he was healthy, he sounded older than this in her mind’s eye.

She hunted for the painting where the voices were coming from and found it half-hidden behind a rendition of a Tyvian-style wedding dress in tatters, as an even younger voice was saying, “Your Majesty, the Countess of Bérault awaits you in the Emerald Room.”

There were just three figures in the painting – the squire, stood to attention by the door, off to the right; Euhorn sitting on the floor on the left, wrinkling his fine clothes with one knee propped up; and beside him, an infant with brown hair, not yet turned black, and piercing blue eyes that would remain just so.

“No,” the baby whined, as Euhorn put down the doll he had been holding. “Play.”

“Can you not see I am already entertaining an important guest?” Euhorn said to the squire, and there was a youthful kind of laughter in his voice and his eyes that Jessamine had never heard on him before. Nevertheless it was instantly recognisable. It was the same as Cyril’s.

“Your Majesty,” bowed the squire. The _I cannot argue with my Emperor but if I do not attempt to fulfil my task of conducting him to his business I could be executed for negligence of duty_ bow. She hadn’t been wise to it as a child, but Emily prompted it frequently enough for her to notice a pattern.

Euhorn sighed, either sensing the squire’s discomfort or simply reminding himself of the reality of his obligations, and leaned forward to kiss the baby’s forehead. “You’re my little princess, Delilah,” he murmured, and picked himself up off the rug, straightening his coat. Jessamine wondered if this was before or after he and the Countess of Bérault became engaged. It shouldn’t make a difference – indeed it made none to Delilah, dead in her arms, whether Euhorn had ceased to love his little princess as soon as the legitimate daughter came to fruition.

There was a full-length frame without a painting – just swirls of purple, white and black, shimmering in the lantern-light. She stepped through it, and felt the shift in the air as she emerged in the real Lighthouse. Delilah was suddenly heavy in her arms, the weight and sharpness of her bones pressing into her. She took a sheet from the linen closet and wrapped the body in it, laid her on the bed that been prepared for the Lord Regent. The Empress couldn’t return to Dunwall Tower carrying a corpse. She would give careful instructions to someone she trusted to deal with the bodies on the island respectfully. She would not let the Abbey burn Delilah or her sisters as heretics.

A discomfort settled over her like a shroud on her way down in the Lighthouse’s elevator. She jostled her bone charm sash as if that might be the cause, and tried to tell herself that the aura around Kingsparrow Island was but a remnant of Delilah’s fading power, and nothing more.

When she arrived at the lifeboat station, Martin was familiarising himself with the instructions, and Corvo was putting the final adjustments on Emily’s lifejacket. Corvo gave her a nod, Emily only the very corners of a smile, and even Martin’s well of wit seemed to have run dry; he was about ready to make a remark, thought better of it, and remained silent.

“It’s done,” she said, perhaps mostly for herself. An attempt to bring finality to the whole affair, pretending there were not a thousand more things to do when they arrived back at Dunwall Tower. “Are we ready to go?”

“Not just yet,” said Havelock’s voice behind her, and she did not have time to draw the Mark because he was grabbing her arm and plunging a penknife into the back of her hand. She screamed, and he wrapped an arm around her collar from behind. She felt the barrel of a pistol against her temple.

Corvo had started to his feet and ushered Emily behind him, but was now frozen in place, and if looks could kill…

“Hands up, please, we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Martin raised his arms above his head. When he spoke, his voice was like the sea – salty and unforgiving. “Me? Miss a front row seat to the biggest cock-up of your life as a self-righteous mutineer with a persecution complex? Not likely.”

“That’s enough lip from you,” Havelock snapped.

“Where’s Pendleton? He man enough to join you in this?” Martin was stalling. Jessamine had to admit she was grateful, as she could hardly string a few coherent thoughts together. The Mark was burning against the blade of Havelock’s knife, but the sigil was broken, it couldn’t complete itself. She felt as if the blood of her hand was on the verge of boiling.

He scoffed. “Pendleton’s a gutless coward.” She saw the dried blood splatters on Havelock’s hand and thought that might be quite a literal definition of the term ‘gutless’. “Now we’re going to go to the Tower, and put this whole mess right. But before we do, there’s one little detail still nagging away at me.” His voice was lower and closer to her ear, and she tried to lean away instinctively. “What’s your stake in this, Hana? Not revenge, or you would have killed me earlier.”

The clouds parted in her mind for a moment, illuminating the path ahead. She had a burst of perfect clarity, a glimpse of all the days and years ahead of her, in which she saw that this moment was nothing more than a footnote in history, if that much. Admiral Farley Havelock, who had sought glory and recognition above all else, would be forgotten along with his trivial coup d’état. The voice of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin had become hoarse and shadowed in her absence from the throne, but it was unmistakable. “I assure you, Mister Havelock,” she said. “There are more cruel forms of vengeance than murder.”

Martin might have smiled. Havelock, she had no doubt, did not.

Lapping water filled the silence in the boathouse. He drew back slightly, speaking openly to the room again. “I started to suspect that something was wrong after your reaction to us poisoning Hana, Corvo. Should have trusted my instincts.”

Perhaps it was a good thing that Corvo did not have the use of his voice. Jessamine had no desire to widen Emily’s already extensive vocabulary of profanity. “Just give up this ridiculous charade,” she said. “What have your aspirations amounted to? Nothing but betrayal and death.”

“I admit this is not where I saw this operation leading. We got cocky – got greedy.” He sighed. She didn’t know what he had hoped to gain, here, but he seemed to have fallen short of it. Good. “Let all of this be over.”

He released her, and made to extract the knife from her hand – she batted him away and did it herself, teeth gritted. Only then did she notice that it was not quite a knife at all, but a letter-opener. She handed it to Martin without looking at him. Corvo had his pistol trained on Havelock. He was waiting for an order – Jessamine was not sure what to tell him. She almost could not even bring herself to care about Havelock’s fate.

“We’re leaving,” she said, and turned to Emily to ask, “Are you alright?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but instead gasped, as Havelock chose his own fate. Jessamine hadn’t detected the note of defeat in his voice she needed to hear. That he wasn’t out of fight yet was no surprise to her, and so her sword was flipped out of its handle and buried into his guts. He, by contrast, was not expecting _her_ , judging by the startled gurgle of blood in his mouth and his bulging, slate-grey eyes.

His blade clattered to the floor, and his mouth twisted in a grimace or a smirk. “Long live the Empress,” he wheezed.

And she would. She was quite determined to make sure of it.


End file.
